You Could Do Something Amazing With Your Life: You Are Raoul Moat

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Your solicitor said to get your head around the fact that people get booked for things they didn’t do, but how can an innocent man accept being hanged? That’s why you wanted to do a lie detector test, but your solicitor said no judge would look at it, and the police wouldn’t look at it, so you wrote to Jeremy Kyle and asked to go on there and do a lie detector test on TV, because how would they have all felt then? How would they have felt if you’d gone on Jeremy Kyle to do a lie detector, and when he asked if you hit that little kid you turned around and said, NO, I DIDN’T HIT THAT LITTLE KID, and the lie detector showed you were telling the truth? How would they have felt then? Because you didn’t do any of this. You’re the most innocent bloke around, but your best wasn’t good enough for them or Sam or the children or yourself. You spent your whole life wanting a family after all these years being alone, and now you’ve had to watch them slide further and further into the devil’s belly, and you’ve got nobody to cuddle into, and you miss them so much.

Another letter arrives. It says they don’t normally reschedule appointments, but they know this is hard for you, so they’re offering you another appointment. It’s on May 13, 2008. Stand in front of the mirror and convince yourself you are great. Tell yourself you can fulfill your dreams because you can make your dreams come true.” – Unknown

You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat]

In the early hours of 3 July 2010 near Newcastle, Raoul Moat, a 37 year-old bodybuilder, recently released from prison, shot his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend with a sawn-off shotgun before going on the run; his ex would survive but the boyfriend died. Moat would go on to shoot PC Rathband, a police officer (who survived but was permanently blinded – unable to cope with his disability, he committed suicide two years later). On the run for seven days, Moat camped out in the woods of Northumberland.

After we learn about Moat’s life and he’s carried out the shootings, the book sags in the middle as Moat’s directionless ramblings repeat his problems: how his ex means the world to him, his paranoid delusions of the police persecuting him, blaming his bad childhood, and on and on. I understand why this lengthy passage is included – to show us the mundanity of a so-called monster – but re-reading information we learned earlier in the book is still an extremely onerous part of an otherwise fast-moving and gripping read. The next section is health. You write that you have asthma and need more help with it. You write that there was a recent accident where your hand got crushed, shattering the bones. It has not healed properly and doesn’t work properly. It looks terrible. It’s more than that. He can tell you’re depressed. Your voice is breaking. You’re 37 years old, too old to start again. A letter arrives. You’ve got an appointment with a trainee clinical psychologist on April 29, 2008.You will need total dedication, of course, but there are so many resources out there that are absolutely free, which can help you with that. Also, so many people that have done it before you share their tips, the steps they took and the problems they encountered. 7. Learn how to enjoy life You’ve come out of prison with nothing. And for the first time he doesn’t have an answer. Tonight is unpleasant. There is something really amazing about you.. Your unique ideas and thoughts that you bring to this world. Your smile, your laugh.. It’s you and you are valuable, worthy and cherished.” – Rachel Hamilton

Masculinity, media and life on the margins of modern Britain are all put under the microscope via the true and sorry story of outlaw Raoul Moat … His very public disintegration is captured perfectly by Andrew Hankinson. A powerful portrayal of the banality of violence … a trigger finger of a book: taut, tense and on edge. Eventually, cornered by the police, Moat shot himself. Andrew Hankinson, a journalist and a Geordie, tells Moat's story in the second person, which means that the listener is uncomfortably close at all times to Raoul Moat. It is an audio experience unrelieved by authorial distance or omniscient interpretation.Keeping us inside Moat’s head means that we barely hear about his victims or their families. Is this something that concerns you?

Raoul Moat captured on CCTV footage entering a Newcastle shop on Friday, 2 July 2010. Photograph: Getty Images Being in Moat’s angry, paranoid head is an uncomfortable and gut-churning place to be, yet Andrew Hankinson never lets Moat off the hook, challenging his victim mentality and denials of wrong-doing with bald statements of fact. This is a powerful and disquieting book. I had a lots of information to draw on. I attended the trial of Moat’s accomplices [Karl Ness and Qhurum Awan, both now serving life sentences] and the inquest for Moat. I couldn’t attend the inquest for Christopher Brown, but I had a written version of the coroner’s summary. I had transcripts of the hours and hours of tapes he recorded [on a Dictaphone] when he was on the run in Northumberland, and there were also some tapes he had made before he went to prison that I was able to listen to. In case no one has told you lately, you are amazing, strong, brave, wonderful, kind, loved, worthy, and there is no one like you. The world needs you.”– Unknown You are way more awesome than you think you are. Don’t forget about your awesomeness today.” – Janna CacholaThis truly is one of the greatest nonfiction books I've read. I think about it a lot, despite not owning a copy of the book and having only read it once 2 years ago.