Trans former Wigan prison officer to go on the run for TV reality show

For Jax Feeley and his sister Nicola are two of the contestants in the latest series of the heart-pumping Channel Four reality show-cum-thriller Hunted.

In it six couples try for three weeks to evade capture by a crack team of experts who have state-of-the-art surveillance technology and huge experience at their disposal.

Any who manage to avoid being snared for the duration, win a share of a £100,000.

Jax, 30, and his 28-year-old sister will have a lot to live up to locally since the 2020 series of the show was won by Wigan couple Daniel Ryder and Hayley Morrison.

But having already recorded the show, they are of course sworn to secrecy about how well – or otherwise – they did. Viewers will just have to watch the six-part series to find out.

This will be Jax’s second major outing on television having last year appeared in another popular Channel Four show, Banged Up, in which a group of celebrities got a taste of the inside by spending several weeks in the company of real criminals in a prison re-opened for the programme.

In fact the series of Hunted was filmed in 2022 so the siblings have had to keep quiet about it for a long time.

They can’t say much about the content of the programmes but they are delighted at the opportunity Hunted will give them to spread a message.

Jax, who is dedicating his life to promoting public acceptance for transgender people, said: “I am trans and Nic is gay and we want to spread awareness of our own stories and to be in the living rooms of the nation shining a positive light on our relationship and showing what we can do if we put our minds to it.

"As far as Hunted is concerned, it was like having another childhood as Jax. You just had to keep moving, finding safe places to stay, asking people for help. We started with a spare set of clothes and £50 each on a card and were released at Piccadilly tube station in London. The aim is to avoid capture for three weeks and make it to an extraction point at the end.

"We had a great time and caused some carnage. We embraced the game and wind the hunters up but had some fun as well.”

Nic, who has also been a prison officer, said: “We go through every emotion on this show and it was exciting and scary at the same time. You have no idea where the hunters are. They could have been just a minute behind us at any time.”

The pair auditioned for the show by filming themselves explaining why they wanted to become fugitives.

Jax said: “We were both prison officers at that time. I think the programme-makers liked the idea of us being on the run.”

The six-part series begins at 9pm on Channel Four this Sunday.