Have you seen the Channel 4 show Hunted?
The principle is simple; 10 ordinary people are selected to be dumped in a location. They must then use their wits, guile, and ingenuity to avoid a group of well-trained investigators and former police and military detectives to not get caught.
All the tools
This hard-nosed bunch is supported by a big team in a control centre, on the road teams, a surveillance helicopter and high performance drones.
Given the pedigree of the hunters I’m mildly surprised that anybody is left after the first 10 minutes.
In the episode I saw, the hunted were mixed collection. They included a deputy mayor, father and son team, retired head teacher and a former police officer.
The hunted were driven to inner City Manchester where they all promptly legged it, seemingly without any plan to escape capture other than to run to ground and hide amongst the masses.
The former mayor of Bradford legged it into a Subway where he persuaded a man shaped nothing like him to don his blue coat and pretend to be him. He didn’t last long.
Escape by coach
What stole the show for me was when a nice elderly lady, the former head teacher, decided that the best way to escape was to pop to Chorlton Street Coach Station and catch a National Express coach to Milton Keynes.
One small snag was the fact that the hunters were able to scrutinise CCTV footage to identify her ticket and destination.
So, the show tracked her getting on the coach, chatting to passengers, it even had a nice shot of the Coach Tracker logo for good measure.
The hunters were licking their lips as they followed her progress southwards and the team were ready and waiting to pounce at Milton Keynes.
And then she threw a clever curved ball. As they approached Milton Keynes she asked the driver if he had anyone to pick up, he said no, then she asked the passengers if anyone wanted to get off, again a resounding no.
So, the Hunters could only watch with dismay as the coach thundered past Milton Keynes on its way to London.
Coach tracker demo
However despite her best efforts to camouflage herself by wearing a different hat, good old coach tracker could still track the journey and sadly as soon as she got off that was it, they nabbed her.
Game over, all part of the service. Coach Tracker and Hunters one, hunted old lady nil.
