Ben McNutt: Raoul Moat would have been better off in suburbia

WHEN Moat was last seen in the B&Q, the likelihood is that he would be taking items needed to create a shelter for himself, so probably an axe or a saw - a saw would be quieter and less likely to draw attention to his position - and some strong green plastic sheeting.

But how he will be coping out in the countryside at the moment will depend on the extent of his survivalist skills, both in terms of feeding himself but also concealing his whereabouts from the people looking for him.

If he has the relevant survival knowledge, he will be hiding out, keeping below the tree line and relying on the woods for shelter from both the elements and any police helicopters searching for him.

Moat could easily create a smokeless fire by scraping the bark from branches and just burning the bare wood, giving him warmth at night and a source of cooking heat.

Physically, however, he could easily go for several days without food, surviving on the supplies of carbohydrates in his body, though it is more than likely that if he has planned this then he will have taken stores of food with him.

In terms of the distance he would be able to cover, given the clement weather we have had recently and the terrain he is thought to be hiding out in, I would say as long as he's in good health, Moat could cover between 15km and 20km a day on foot if he wanted to. That means he could have travelled 60km.

But though it is likely that he will not be suffering too much discomfort at the moment, the longer he stays out in the countryside, the greater the chances he will leave himself open to the risk of hypothermia - the weather is set to turn by the end of the week - and water-borne infection.

If he has no access to water-purifying tablets, which he could have picked up in a chemist, or is too scared about revealing his position to light fires to boil water, he is in danger of contracting giardiasis, known in the US as "beaver fever".

This is an infection transmitted by animal urine and it gets into streams and water courses, so Moat could easily contract it that way. It has around a 10-day incubation but then he would start to experience painful stomach cramps, diarrhoea, vomiting and fever.

To be honest, if he had military or professional training, there are plenty of little tricks he could use to keep himself going, but for somebody without the necessary survival skills trying to evade detection or capture for a long period, Moat would perhaps have been better hiding out in suburbia.

• Ben McNutt is a bushskills instructor and survivalist expert.