UK Fugitive Raoul Moat - Steroid Addict

On the 1st of July Raoul Moat is released from Durham Prison in the North East of England. He updates his Facebook profile with a chilling message "I've lost everything ...my lass of six years has gone off with the copper ..... watch and see what happens."

On the 2nd July staff at Durham Prison warned Northumbria Police that Moat planned to cause grevious harm to his partner, former girlfriend Samantha Stobbart. But the police didn't heed the warning and the next day he shot Miss Stobbart at her home in Gateshead and killed her new boyfriend Chris Brown. He also shot a policeman who is still in a serious condition.

Raoul Moat, father of 3, was addicted to steroids and now the question is - did they send him over the edge? Young men looking for that perfect body image are turning to the drug in their thousands in the UK. According to drug counsellors, those injecting steroids now outnumber users of heroin and other drugs combined and they are getting younger and younger. In the past five years, official figures indicate that users aged 11 to 15 have doubled.

The law in the UK is confusing - it's illegal to supply them but it's not illegal to have them in your possession. Because of this, they are regarded by the general population as harmless but in fact they are linked to sterility, liver damage and violent mood swings. They can only be legally sold on prescription by a doctor but are freely available at most gyms. You can also buy them on the internet from foreign websites who will deliver them to your door within a few days. Drug workers say steroids have become the drug of choice for many professional people, including solicitors and bankers.

Raoul Moat 37, had a great body and once said he felt like the incredible hulk. He was addicted and had been injecting steroids for years to achieve his over-sized muscles. His friends said at times he could be irrational and paranoid and had a hair-trigger temper. He had what they call 'Roid Rage'. Although their main use is to build muscles, steroids flood the body with a modified version of testosterone which causes aggressive and violent episodes and a change in personality.

Dan Brown 23 from West Midlands says he had a personality change from steroids. He was worried about his appearance. "I've always been a fairly slim guy. As I've got older, it's started to bother me a bit more. My ex-girlfriend had started making comments as well, she was moaning about how thin she thought I was and how she'd love it if I bulked up like other guys". So Dan headed to the gym.

"I got the impression that almost everyone was using them. It didn't seem to be a big deal. I was getting frustrated that my training wasn't giving me great results so I decided to give them a go. So for 60 pounds Dan bought a course of injectable steroids from someone at the gym. "Once my first course finished, I didn't want to take a break because I was worried I might lose the muscle I was putting on. It was that quick."

"This time I bought a pack of 100 pills for 25 pound. You're supposed to take just one a day but the other guys all take five a day so I decided I should do that as well." Dan noticed that his personality was starting to change. "I'm normally a fairly calm guy who can get on with most people but I became moody and irritable almost overnight. If I was in the car and another driver was irritating me, I'd wind down my window and start shouting across the street at them. It really wasn't like me, amost as if I was watching someone else in my body turning into this monster."

Three months later, Dan realised that the steroids were to blame for the person he was becoming. "It had got to the point that I couldn't trust myself not to get angry at people if I was in a bad mood. I knew it was time to stop before something bad happened so I decided not to buy anymore. It's taken a while to get them out of my system but I'm getting back to my old self".

After days of being chased by hundreds of police, Moat finally lay exhausted in the rain and was losing the will to live. When he began talking about telling the kids he loved them, police new the end was near. A police spokesman said "I genuinely think if it hadn't rained, we might have had a chance to end it peacefully. Lying there on the ground, he just got very demoralised. Today we feel a sense of failure but I think in all honesty that the combination of the rain and the dark and the cold and his mental state and lack of sleep, all made the result inevitable.

So did steroids contribute to this man's violent acts, including shooting himself in the head? I guess now we'll never know.