AS RAOUL MOAT grew increasingly desperate whilst on the run from police last year, he resorted to eating dead mice, an inquest into his death has heard.

A police negotiator has told the inquest at Newcastle Crown Court that Moat revealed during a stand-off with authorities that he was starving and had been eating dead mice whilst on the run, according to BBC News.

In a highly-publicised manhunt last July, Moat evaded authorities for a week after he shot his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart, killed her new boyfriend Chris Brown and blinded police constable David Rathband after shooting him in the face.

The police officer – granted anonymity by the court – told how Moat looked a “broken man” who was “100 per cent suicidal” when he was cornered to a riverbank in Rothbury, Northumberland last July.

A stand-off lasting a number of hours ensued leading to the former nightclub bouncer’s death.

The Daily Mirror quotes the police officer as saying: “He told us he had been starving and had been eating dead mice. Giving him food and drink was a positive action in which he learned to trust us a little bit.”

The negotiator also described the moments leading up to Moat’s death in which he says the 37-year-old began to “psyche himself up” to “make the most horrendous decision any human being could make in their life”.

The Sun quotes the officer as saying: “My colleagues were shouting, ‘Raoul, put the gun down; Raoul don’t end it, don’t do it, think of your kids.’ But he didn’t listen.

“At that point there was a pop and the firearm moved several inches from his head. He made a scream, he shouted out ‘ow’ loudly, then pushed the gun back against his temple.

“There was a second pop and a diamond-shaped flash, and that’s when he shot the side of his head off and there was an exit from the side of his head. And then he fell over and that was the end.”

The inquest continues.