HERO PC David Rathband, who was found dead in his home on Wednesday night, had told friend Duncan Bannatyne that he would never give Raoul Moat “the satisfaction” of taking his own life.

The Dragon’s Den star – patron of the inspirational traffic officer’s charity, the Blue Lamp Foundation – last night described PC Rathband’s suspected suicide as a “terrible shock”.

“I feel I let him down, I feel a bit guilty,” he told The Northern Echo. “I wish I had spoken to him and gone to visit him more. However, I don’t know what more support he could have got.”

The father-of-two is likely to have become Moat’s final victim less than two years after the fugitive gunman shot and blinded him in July 2010.

Twitter users alerted Northumbria Police last week after PC Rathband was reported to have tweeted ‘‘RIP PC Rathband’’ and that he had ‘‘lost my sight, my job, my wife and my marriage’’ and would ‘‘say goodbye to my children’’.

Officers were so concerned that they called him last Friday in Australia, where he was visiting his twin brother Darren, and then met him when he landed back at Heathrow and took him home.

The 44-year-old, who was due to return to work with the force next month, assured them he was fine and that the Tweets were posted by someone else.

Police are not looking for anyone in connection with PC Rathband’s death after his body was found on Wednesday night at his home in Blyth, Northumberland.

Paul Garner, of Blyth, who completed a sponsored walk with PC Rathband at the launch of his charity, said: ‘‘He kept on keeping on as long as he could, but it all became too much to take. Now Raoul Moat has killed him too.”

Entrepreneur Mr Bannatyne, whose business empire has its headquarters in Darlington, revealed that PC Rathband had told him that he would not consider suicide – despite the huge physical and mental toll the shooting had taken on him.

“I said ‘You would never do that would you?’ And he said ‘No I wouldn’t give Moat the satisfaction.”

PC Rathband, father to teenagers Ashley and Mia, announced on Twitter in November that he and his wife ,Kath, were separating permanently.

Prime Minister David Cameron led the tributes, saying: “I met David, he was an extraordinarily brave man, and after his horrific injuries he did an enormous amount for charities and for other injured police officers, and for families who had lost police officers in the line of duty.”

Northumbria Chief Constable Sue Sim said: “We were working with David from the time this tragic incident happened when his life was changed for ever. And he has been struggling to come to terms with the impact of that.”

Former doorman Moat was the subject of a major manhunt in July 2010, evading capture for a week before shooting himself dead after a stand-off with police in Rothbury, Northumberland.

He shot and injured his former partner, Samantha Stobbart, 22, and killed her new boyfriend, Chris Brown, 29, in Birtley, near Chester-le-Street.

Next day, he crept up on PC Rathband as he sat in his police car on a roundabout over the A1 in Newcastle and blasted him twice in the face, leaving him for dead.

The officer, left with more than 200 shotgun pellets in his skull, underwent surgery at Newcastle General Hospital, but lost his sight.

Amanda Hawkins, of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, said sight loss had a major emotional impact.

“He just lost huge swathes of life as he knew them overnight,” she added.