Wigan brother and sister win thrilling reality show Hunted

Jaxon and Nicola Feeley from Ashton-in-Makerfield took a two-thirds share of the show’s £100,000 prize by avoiding a crack team of surveillance experts for three weeks and then at the end sprinting up a brutal 1,500ft mountainside to a Lake District tarn and the helicopter extraction point with two hunters in hot pursuit.

It is the second time a Wigan pairing has won the popular show, Daniel Ryder and Hayley Morrison having performed the same feat in 2020.

Jax, 30, is already well-known to television viewers, having recently appeared in another highly rated programme Banged Up. And he has also hit the headlines because he transitioned from Jessica to Jaxon while working as a prison officer.

He has taken every opportunity to show on TV and through other media that transition is not an obstacle to anything, but by the same token was today keen not to let it be a distraction from the “team work win” with his 28-year-old sister.

The series began with six couples released into central London and tasked with evading capture by experienced trackers and investigators for three weeks. One by one the other contestants were captured through drone surveillance, monitoring of bank activity, facial recognition technology, monitoring contacts of the fugutives and other forms of good old detective work.

By the sixth and final episode, there were only two pairs left in contention: the Feeleys plus Sade Cooke and her son Cameron Nightingale.

It seemed the Wigan pair were doomed after a hunter managed to board their train from Oxford to Manchester but they managed to give her the slip and found their way up to The Langdales.

Cameron was captured in Skipton but his mum also made it up to Stickle Tarn in foul weather to be picked up by the helicopter along with Jax and Nic.

Back home in Wigan Jax said: “It was a fabulous experience. There were some moments when we thought we were done for. Just getting away from friend Mick Farrell’s warehouse in York where we slammed the door on a hunter and got into a getaway car was brilliant – it was like being kids again.

"And going up the mountain together at the end and getting in that helicopter was exhilarating.”

Nic said: “This was all filmed in 2022 and it has been so difficult not telling anyone (apart from my mum, dad and partner) for all that time.

"The most terrifying part was escaping at the railway station. They were right on our tails. But getting up that mountain and into the helicopter was amazing.”

Nic had just bought a house before the series was filmed and so prize money for her went on doing it up. Jax had undergone several rounds of surgery and is third share helped to pay those bills.

He said: “I want to inspire people that whatever you go through, you can achieve you put your mind to. But most important thing about this show is that Nic and I did it together. It was a real team effort.”