Toxic Avenger:The Hunt For Raoul Moat.

In England and Wales, two women, on average, are killed by a former or current partner every week. Toxic, violent, sad, pathetic men like Raoul Moat. In ITVX's The Hunt For Raoul Moat (directed by Gareth Bryn, written by Kevin Sampson) we see, and feel, the damage that men like Moat cause and we also see the hurt and pain his misguided fans, an online incel army, cause others.

Some thought Moat was a 'hero', some considered him a 'legend' , and, until it was taken down, a Facebook page in praise of him had over 30,000 followers. But Moat wasn't a hero or a legend. He was a violent murderer who beat up both his girlfriends and his children.

When we first meet Moat (played by Matt Stokoe) he's in HMP Durham serving a prison sentence for assaulting a nine year old. He's regularly using the prison phone to call, and harass, his ex-girlfriend Samantha (Sally Messham). Samantha's the mother of his child but, after years of abuse, she has left Moat and has started seeing karate instructor Chris (Josef Davies).

Moat (a former nightclub bouncer prone to 'roid rage', I'm sure not all former nightclub bouncers are violent psychopaths but you don't get to hear much about the ones that aren't) has not been to able to accept Samantha leaving him, he's not able to accept anything he can't control, and he's certainly not able to accept that Samantha is now with Chris. When he's released from prison he shoots Chris in cold blood and then he shoots Samantha too. Chris dies. Samantha (eventually) survives. Moat goes on the run.

That all happens in the first half hour and the rest of the drama focuses both on the families involved and their attempts to heal and find some closure and, most of all, the police attempts to find Moat and arrest him. To stop him killing again. To stop him, specifically, killing police.

In an attempt to deter Moat from hurting Chris, Samantha had lied that Chris was a police officer. So Moat threatens to shoot more police and it's not an idle threat. I remember the story at the time, summer 2010, but I didn't remember exactly how it panned out and I made sure not to read up on it so I could enjoy, if that's the right word, The Hunt For Raoul Moat.

Leading the hunt for Moat are Chief Superintendent Neil Adamson (Lee Ingleby, DI Nisha Roberts (Vineeta Rishi), and another policeman, rank not given, who goes by the name of Robbo (Mark Stobbart, all three of those actors - incidientally - appeared in the fourth series of Line of Duty! The press, too, take an interest in the case. An interest that is at times helpful to the police but an interest that is also prurient. The press are represented by crime reporter Diane Barnwell (Sonya Cassidy) and her editor, Matt (Neil Grainger).

We see Chris's devastated family (Angela Bain as his mother, Sally, and Sophie Wise as his sister, Beckie) travel to the North East to try to piece together what happened to their son and to see justice done and we see Samantha's mum, Lesley (Gina Murray), and best friend, Suzie (Jessica Johnson), giving police evidence as to Moat's history of violence. We also see Moat's brother Angus (Micky McGregor) who believes his brother needs psychiatric help.

It certainly appears he did but now he's a murderer on the run, holed up in the small town of Rothbury about thirty miles north of Newcastle, the chief priority and one that becomes ever more urgent is to stop Moat killing again.

Finding him, and apprehending him, does not prove straightforward. The hunt for Raoul Moat involves Moat making further threats to kill, tensions between press and police, rabbit killings, 'hostages', Ray Mears advising the police on survival techniques, McFlurrys, sawn off shotguns, and an infamous and entirely unhelpful offer of assistance from Paul Gascoigne.

It's a well made, well acted (props to Dale Meeks - who I have just discovered died, aged 47, this weekend - as Rory, a 'friend' of Moat's who seems to be the victim of his bullying, to Dan Renton Skinner as PC David Rathband who finds himself on the wrong end of Moat's gun, and to Joe Blakemore and Anand Toora as Karl and Qhuram, two of Moat's associates whose involvement and complicity in his crimes could have been explored in more depth) drama.

It's taut, it's tense, and it's got some lovely views of the Tyneside area:- the Angel of the North, the Baltic, the Tyne Bridge, and the Millennium Bridge as well as a chip shop in Seaton Delaval. There's one very chilling scene, one very infuriating one, and two really sad scenes. The Hunt For Raoul Moat does a good job in telling the stories of and giving a voice to the victims while at the same time as showing Moat not to be a hero but a violent criminal. It's never in doubt that he will, ultimately, pay for his crimes. The tragedy though is how many people have to suffer before he does.