Alex Batty, aged 17, was found near Toulouse this Wednesday, December 13, 6 years after his disappearance. Abducted by his mother, he grew up in a traveling spiritual community.
Alex Batty, a 17-year-old British teenager, was found near Toulouse on Wednesday December 13, six years after his disappearance. Discovered walking along a road in Aude in the middle of the night by a 26-year-old delivery driver, the young man immediately used the courier’s phone to send a message to his grandmother, who is also his legal guardian. “Hello Grandma, it’s me Alex. I’m in France in Toulouse. I really hope you receive this message. I love you. I want to come home” he wrote according to the details from the BBC.
An unexpected return and a source of relief for Alex Batty’s grandmother. Susan Caruana told British media outlet The Sun: “I’m so happy. I spoke to him and he’s fine.” “Sheltered” by French social services, Alex Batty must be repatriated to Great Britain in the coming days, said the Toulouse public prosecutor’s office, confirming information from the Manchester police. British police officers were sent to France to assist the teenager in the care of French social services while awaiting his return across the Channel.
The teenager disappeared in 2017 when he was 12 years old. He was then traveling with his mother, Melanie Betty and his grandfather, David Betty, in Spain. Neither was the boy’s legal guardian, so the travel dates had been agreed in advance with his grandmother, Susan Caruana. Alex Batty was last seen on October 8, 2017 at the port of Malaga in southern Spain, the date he was due to return to the UK.
Worried, the young man’s grandmother sounded the alarm about the child’s disappearance. She told the BBC in 2018 that she feared his mother and grandfather had taken the boy to live in a spiritual community in Morocco. She had specified that they were both looking for an alternative lifestyle. An investigation was then opened in England and is still ongoing.
Alex Batty told the driver who found him on the road that after his kidnapping by his mother “he had lived in Spain in a luxury house with dozens of people” and that he “would have arrived in France around 2021 “, he would then have remained in the surroundings of Ariège and Aude. Found on December 13, the young man left the community the previous weekend and walked for four days. After his journey “he was thirsty” and would have lain down upon his arrival at the Revel police station, in Haute-Garonne.
For six years, Alex Batty grew up in a traveling spiritual community, “far removed from classical life”, to which his mother and grandfather belonged. According to La Dépêche, the trio would have stayed in the departments of Ariège and Aude in recent weeks. The British would have slept most of the time in caravans, lodges or even tents.
The 17-year-old indicated that he was free to leave this community and that he left during the weekend of December 9 and 10. “He was much more relieved to have left and to have a new normal life […] He was fed up. He didn’t see his future there”, further indicated the delivery man who found Alex Batty. According to him, the teenager “really wanted to find his grandmother”. Alex’s mother and grandfather have not been found and may still be in the community. The Briton described a mother who was “a little crazy” but against whom he had “no animosity”.
On Thursday, December 14, La Dépêche was the first to reveal the discovery of the missing teenager. He was identified by the authorities of the commune of Revel in Haute-Garonne. Although he did not present an identity document, as the daily clarified, his story corresponds to that of the disappearance. The public prosecutor, Samuel Vuelta-Simon, confirmed to Libération this Thursday that “it is indeed this missing child, the family has confirmed it and the photographic connection as well”.
Alex Batty was found by Fabien Accidini, a 26-year-old student who also works as a drug deliveryman in pharmacies. Questioned by Le Parisien this Thursday, December 14, the courier confided that he had seen the teenager during his tour on Wednesday morning, while the latter was walking “in the rain, with a skateboard under his arm and a backpack”. The delivery man offered to drop him off, which the British teenager accepted. The latter told the Toulouse student that he had fled four days previously from a spiritual community located in the mountains. On foot since his escape, he said he wanted to reach a large city in order to find help from an embassy. Mr. Accidini then offered to take him to the authorities.
