Moat 'asked for psychiatric help'

Gunman Raoul Moat told social workers he wanted to see a psychiatrist in case he had a "problem", it has emerged.

Just months before he shot a policeman, his ex-partner and killed her new boyfriend, the former nightclub doorman said he wanted help.

The picture of an increasingly paranoid Moat, 37, emerges in taped recordings he made with social workers and the police from July 2009 until around April this year.

In one conversation last year he said: "I'm quite emotionally unstable you know, I get myself over-the-top happy sometimes you know," he is heard to say.

"And I have my bad days you know, erm, I've done it all my life that when things going on that you don't like you block things out ... The more you block things out the more numb you become in the heart you know, you get to a point where happiness to you is just like, you know, neither here nor there."

The recordings were given to ITV News by a friend of the steroid-addicted bodybuilder, who said they wanted people to see a different picture of the father-of-three. In a recording made by Moat from a meeting in August 2009 - attended by a social worker - he said: "I would like to have, erm, a psychiatrist, psychologist, have a word with me regularly, on a regular basis to see if there's somewhere underlying like where I have problem that I haven't seen.

"You know, it's easy for me to say I don't do anything wrong but I would like a professional, you know, not a DIY thing you know ..? A professional thing for someone to come along and say look there's area for improvement here. This is a problem."