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Anorak News | Raoul Moat Is Not Half-French But Might Be Nuts: Pictures

Raoul Moat Is Not Half-French But Might Be Nuts: Pictures

by | 9th, July 2010

RAOUL Moat is in the news. A reader does some digging and finds out that Moat is not the half-French nutter he’s made out to be:

ONE thing the media have got totally wrong is the claim that Moat is half-French, as reported above. His mother is NOT French. I am an expert genealogist and have traced his ancestry in online records. The birth, marriage and death indexes of the General Register Office for England & Wales are on the internet at several websites and are easily accessible to anyone who has a subscription to them. His mother’s name is Josephine Healey, formerly Moat, and his stepfather is Brian Healey.

FACT: a Josephine R. Moat, married Brian Healey at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1977 and, somewhat curiously, again in 1986. Why were there two marriages? Presumably something was wrong with the first one. She is said to be now aged 63.

FACT: there is only one Josephine R. Moat in the GRO birth indexes and she was born in 1947 – at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which wasn’t in France the last time I checked! I also traced her parents and they, too, were from the north-east of England. I checked even further back to a great-grandfather who was born at Newcastle in 1848. So unless there has been an extraordinary coincidence and there was another Josephine R. Moat who was born in France – which seems unlikely – then there is no French Connection.

Moreover, why has there been no mention anywhere of his real father, only his stepfather? The reason is because when Moat and his elder brother were born the birth indexes show the mother’s maiden name as Moat, which suggests both were illegitimate.

Knowing something of the ways in which the media work, I would hazard a guess that some local reporter or news agency either made up the fact that the mother was French, or misunderstood something she said, and put it around to the papers and TV stations. Unfortunately, once something becomes enshrined in cuttings it keeps on getting repeated and everybody believes it!

And before anyone accuses me of intrusion into privacy, I must point out that the GRO birth, marriage and death indexes are in the public domain and have been ever since civil registration began in 1837. As I have also pointed out, anyone can access them on the internet from anywhere in the world if they have a subscription to the necessary websites that carries them. And there is no law that prevents anyone from publishing the data.

david-rathband

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Posted: 9th, July 2010 | In: Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink