The woman whose father killed himself after being shot by Moat tells how ITV drama brings back pain

One of Mia Rathband’s most treasured possessions — and one now being held by her baby son — is a teddy bear dressed in a policeman’s uniform. 

It was a present from her brother on her 21st birthday. When she presses down on the bear’s paw, her father’s voice fills the room, telling everyone how beautiful his daughter is, and singing her happy birthday. 

She tells me that she has called the bear Tango 190, her dad’s police call sign.

Her 15-month-old son Ronnie has the middle name David, after the grandfather he will never know. 

‘But I will tell him about him one day,’ says Mia. ‘Obviously, he will find out the whole truth eventually, but I will focus on the positives — the fact that his grandad was a brave man who loved his family and his job.’

One of Mia’s most treasured possessions is a teddy bear dressed in a policeman’s uniform

Mia’s father was PC David Rathband, the traffic officer who was shot and blinded by 37-year-old Raoul Moat in 2010. 

Already on the run after shooting and injuring his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart, and killing her new partner, Chris Brown, Moat’s shooting spree sparked one of the biggest and most notorious manhunts in British history. 

Officially, it ended when, cornered by police officers, Moat shot himself dead.

For PC Rathband and his family, though, the tragedy was more prolonged.

Robbed of his sight and his career, the police officer struggled to cope, despite being hailed a national hero.

His 20-year marriage to Mia’s mother, Kath, broke down after he had an affair with another high-profile victim of violence. Then, 20 months after Moat had blasted him in the face with that shotgun, David took his own life. Mia was only 14 years old.

Now 24, Mia — who followed her father into the police service only to bow out after finding it incompatible with parenthood — has never spoken publicly about her father’s injuries, or death.

This is her first interview. She is giving it because of ITV’s drama series The Hunt For Raoul Moat, the final episode of which airs tonight. 

Although her family was informed about the plan to dramatise Moat’s rampage, they declined to be involved.

Mia is devastated that the event that robbed her of her father (‘because Moat took him from us as soon as he pulled that trigger’) is being served up as entertainment. She will not be watching it.

‘I know it’s a thing now. When you turn on Netflix, you get all these True Crime programmes, but a lot of them are from years and years ago. 

‘This wasn’t that long ago. I don’t understand why it is needed. By putting it all out there again, you force everyone to relive it. Everything associated with it was — and is — painful.

‘I remember walking to school and having people pointing. At the queue in Asda, with my mum, people behind us were talking about it. This is just reliving it again, except this time I’m old enough to understand.’

Her father’s tragedy has been well documented, as have those of Moat’s other victims, Samantha Stobbart and Christopher Brown, but perhaps Mia is among the forgotten victims.

Police officer David Rathband with his wife Katherine and son Ash (left). The police officer blinded by gunman Raoul Moat died by suicide 20 months after he was shot by Moat

Northumbria Police handout of Raoul Thomas Moat, 37, who shot Rathband in the face in 2010

Matt Stokoe as Raoul Moat in the new ITV drama, ‘The Hunt for Raoul Moat’

On that fateful night, in July 2010, she was at home celebrating her 12th birthday with a sleepover party. PC Rathband should not have been on duty, but he volunteered for a late shift to free up the house for a dozen excitable pre-teens. Mia recalls coming downstairs in the wee small hours.

‘I do remember feeling that something wasn’t right. My mum wasn’t there, but one of our neighbours was. She said Mum was at the hospital because my dad had had an accident at work. I thought it was a car accident, because he was a traffic officer.’

Next morning, she was taken to the hospital. ‘I walked onto the ward and Mum was there, looking completely drained. She said: ‘Mia, your dad doesn’t look the same — he’s been shot.’ You know in films where everything around you stops? It was like that. I don’t think I could even process it.’

Her father had been shot, twice, at point-blank range through the window as he sat in his patrol car by a roundabout in Newcastle. He only survived, he reckoned later, because he pretended to be dead. At one point, he thought death was beckoning and he remembers seeing, in his mind, his children appear before him.

In hospital, a shocked Mia was ushered in. ‘Obviously, his eye was all bandaged, but there were marks all over his face, where the pellets had lodged. I took his hand. I’ll never forget that he said: ‘Hi, Darlin’. Are you all right?’ He was asking how I was.

‘I don’t know how you’d even come to terms with seeing your dad like that as an adult, but I was 12,’ adds Mia. ‘When we got back to the house there were armed officers guarding us. The hunt for Moat was all over the news. Surreal is the only word.’

One of the saddest aspects is that this is now where Mia’s memories of her father begin. By all accounts, David Rathband was a doting dad, but Mia says she simply cannot remember much before that day.

‘I can remember going to the hospital, and everything since, as if it was yesterday, but before that — all the happy stuff — it’s as if it was wiped. Sometimes, I’ll have a fleeting memory, but I can never hold on to it.’

What does she know of the man her father was before? ‘A family man, who lived for us,’ she says. 

‘He was really sporty, active. He played football, cricket, used to go on golfing holidays. Hands-on, too. I had an ice-skating lesson once a week and he’d come on the rink afterwards and have a laugh.’

The laughs (and the skating lessons) ended abruptly as PC Rathband was discharged and the family had to cope with not just his physical disabilities, but with his psychological trauma, too.

‘We all had to learn how to deal with his blindness,’ Mia recalls.

‘At meals, I remember being told to think of his plate like the face of a clock. We’d say, ‘Dad, the mash is at 12 o’clock. The peas at 4 o’clock.’ He found it frustrating.’

Her dad was on medication to control the pain, and would frequently hallucinate.

‘I remember one time walking down the stairs behind him and he stopped and said, “There’s a little girl in front of me. I’ll just let her pass.” There was no one there.’ Her mum, Kath — a former nurse — tried valiantly to keep things as normal as possible for Mia and her brother Ashley, ‘but there wasn’t really a normal any more.

‘I remember being on eggshells all the time, afraid to put the TV on because I didn’t want to rub in the fact that Dad couldn’t see it.’

Outwardly, the Rathbands were coping. David was giving Press interviews and accepting public-speaking assignments. He started a charity with TV personalities Carol Vorderman and former Dragons’ Den star Duncan Bannatyne as patrons. Mia says now that she thinks her dad’s main goal was just to get back to work.

‘His job was so important to him — it gave him his identity. He’d say in interviews that he wanted to get back to it, in some capacity, but I don’t think that was ever going to be the case.’

The stresses would have been considerable for any family, but there were complications in this one. 

Mia and her brother, Ashley, six years her senior, had been blissfully unaware (‘and we probably always would have been’, she says) that their dad had had affairs previously and, in the course of his charity work, he became close to 7/7 bombing survivor Lisa French, and a relationship developed.

Mia Rathband, the daughter of Policeman David Rathband who was shot by Raoul Moat in 2010, blinded and horrifically injured and went on to take his own life in 2012

Sisters of PC David Rathband, Julie Reece (left), Debbie Essery and his father Keith Rathband read out a statement on the steps of the Moot Hall, Newcastle, in 2014

Sally Messham as Samantha Stobbart – the ex-girlfriend of Raoul Moat – in ‘The Hunt For Raoul Moat’, which tells the story of the manhunt for the former Newcastle doorman after he shot his Stobbart, her new partner Christopher Brown and police officer David Rathband in 2010

Josef Davies as Chris Brown and Sally Messham as Stobbart in ‘The Hunt For Raoul Moat’

Although Kath and David kept the specifics of their personal problems from their children, lurid details reached the Press. 

At one point, in August 2011, the police were called after a domestic incident. The following December, David travelled to Australia where his twin brother, Darren, lives, and there were reports that he was considering a new life there.

He returned to the UK, however, and was living apart (although nearby) from Kath and the children, but Mia points out that ‘we were all very much involved with his life. Mum was still looking after him, doing everything she could.’

However, her father’s life was in free fall. From Australia, he had been calling Kath, sometimes up to 100 times a day, pleading with her not to end their marriage.

Then there was a messy falling-out when Darren accused Kath of abandoning his brother.

Mia is at pains to stress that her mum was not at fault. ‘She did not leave him. She still cared for him. She saw him every day — we all did — and she still did his shopping for him. That she was blamed for what happened is unforgiveable.’

In the circumstances, it’s hard for her to blame her dad.

‘I will say that I think my dad made decisions that the dad I knew — before he was shot — would not have made.’

David Rathband’s last days — laid bare in a coroner’s court in 2012 — sound pitiful. He expressed suicidal thoughts to his estranged wife, to his sister, to his former lover. There were attempts to get him sectioned.

Mia says that the day before he took his life, she visited her dad. ‘I remember he took ages and ages to come to the door, and when he did he didn’t open it. He stood at the window. He sounded drowsy, not himself. I called my mum and said: ‘Mum, I don’t like this. There is something wrong.’ ‘

She is upset now. ‘If it happened now, I wouldn’t leave. I would kick the door in. I will always regret that I didn’t. But I was 14 . . . ‘

The coroner ruled that there was very little anyone could have done, so set was David Rathband on committing suicide. On the day of his death, Kath visited him and stocked his fridge with food.

He was found dead at 9pm that evening. ‘I was at a friend’s house,’ recalls Mia. ‘Another friend came to get me and said: ‘You have to go home.’ I just knew. I knew.’

Afterwards came the anger. ‘I was angry at the whole world for a long time,’ she says. ‘Mum had a terrible time with me. I didn’t want to talk about it. I went to counselling, but I don’t know if I was ready. I was having dreams that Moat was coming after me. And everywhere I went, I felt people were pointing, having opinions on our lives. People who knew nothing about it.’

What about now? She is glad Moat is dead (‘rather than in a cell, playing on an Xbox’), but still he haunts her dreams.

Then there were all the unanswered questions that only her dad could answer. ‘ ‘Why, Dad?’ is the main one,’ says Mia. ‘I do think about it a lot — particularly since having my son. I can’t imagine leaving Ronnie. I just can’t understand, and I don’t think I will ever be able to.’

I ask if there has been any reconciliation with her uncle, her father’s twin? ‘No, and there won’t be,’ she says, firmly.

David and Kath Rathband with their children Mia and Ashley on holiday in Turkey 2003. David was blinded by Raoul Moat in July 2010, he died by suicide in February 2012

Police officer David Rathband with his daughter Mia, pictured together in 2010

Mia Rathband, the daughter of Policeman David Rathband who was shot by Raoul Moat in 2010, blinded and horrifically injured and went on to take his own life in 2012

What’s extraordinary is that Mia did become a police officer herself. She served in Yorkshire for two years. 

‘I wanted to do it for my dad, really. When he was alive, I’d said I was thinking of it. I guess that what happened to him was either going to put me off completely or push me towards it.

‘But if I’d let it put me off, it would have meant Moat winning, wouldn’t it? When I got the letter saying I’d been accepted, it was bittersweet. I wanted to ring Dad to tell him.’

She might have had a full career too, like her dad, but then, just two years in, she got pregnant, unexpectedly, with Ronnie.

She is not with his father (‘although he’s very much part of Ronnie’s life’), but she found the shift requirements difficult to manage. She says she also found herself thinking about the risk she was taking — not just with her own life, but with her son’s — every time she put on the uniform.

‘I know what happened to my dad was unusual, but it didn’t need to be that big. There’s knife crime. Or as an officer you can just be pushed over. I started to think: ‘This is not worth it.’

Outwardly, the Rathbands were coping. David was giving Press interviews and accepting public-speaking assignments. He is pictured here in 2010 with Kath at a charity event

Did she feel that her responsibility was to her son rather than the job I ask? ‘Yes, and I wanted him to grow up seeing me. What I do remember about my dad’s job is that he was always working.’

In June, Mia will start a new job as a prison officer, one she hopes will be compatible with family life.

Of course, her biggest regret is that her dad never got to meet his grandson. The teddy bear called Tango 190 is only a substitute to a point. ‘But I have played him my dad’s voice, and he has kissed the teddy, which is lovely to see.

‘My dad would have adored him. Ronnie would be his little shadow. He’d have been looking forward to taking him to the park; to play football. They’d have made the best team.’