Chris

That very much depends on what resources you have access to. Shaving your head and changing your clothes will help you disappear but won’t help you start a new life. And if you’re laying low whilst making a plan - as opposed to having some sort of plan in mind before escaping - then you’re at further risk because inevitably you’re going to be stealing stuff to stay alive.

I’m assuming you think Scotland is a good idea because of its low population density compared to England, however most of its population is in urban centres. Its lower overall density is due to its great swathes of barely habitable highland. Up there, if you’re around places where you can steal food or money you’ll draw attention to yourself very quickly. If you head out into the wilderness far from all human life, eventually you’ll die, unless you’ve had some pretty hardcore survival training. The man in question here might just have had some of that, so in his case, who knows.

To escape and stay out you need a significant cash stash - or access to people who really, really like you and will fund you initially, and access to people who can sell you a credible fake ID. Then you need to get out of the country and end up somewhere where that ID isn’t going to get too much scrutiny and where you can operate on a cash-only basis and use a mobile phone/walk past a CCTV camera without triggering an alert that will be passed to UK police forces.