Alex Batty, a 17-year-old found in Aude after having disappeared for six years, has been repatriated to his country of origin. He was reunited with his grandmother in Oldham, England, on the evening of Saturday, December 16.
Alex Batty, the 17-year-old British boy found in France, was repatriated to the United Kingdom on Saturday December 16 after having disappeared for six years. He was reunited with his maternal grandmother, to whom his custody had been entrusted before his mother kidnapped him in 2017. The police indicated that they wanted to clarify the circumstances of his disappearance, but also to work on his “reintegration into society” , reports franceinfo. The teenager was repatriated from Toulouse under police escort. He was found in the southwest of France by a delivery driver who saw him on the side of the road in the middle of the night. “I am very pleased to announce that Alex has returned safely to the United Kingdom after six years of absence,” a Manchester police official announced to journalists.
For six years, Alex Batty had lived a “nomadic” life within a “spiritual” community. He was found after escaping and walking for four days. During a press conference, Antoine Leroy, the deputy prosecutor of Toulouse, indicated that the young man appeared to be in good health and of “lively intelligence”. According to the magistrate, he does not appear to have suffered any abuse during the six years of his kidnapping. His mother, untraceable, could be in Finland. During interviews with investigators, Alex Batty said he left to escape the “spiritual community” of his mother and grandfather. He died only a few months ago.
On Saturday evening, Alex Batty reunited with his grandmother in Oldham, England. The BFMTV teams managed to film the moment of the young man’s arrival in the house. In the images, we see a teenager, dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and surrounded by police, who rushes inside to escape the cameras. The face of the young man, still a minor, is not visible. Manchester police say they want to respect “the privacy of this family” and that their face is not broadcast in the media.
Alex Batty’s grandmother, Susan Caruana, said her grandson wrote to her shortly after he was found and gained access to a phone. “I hope you receive this message, I love you, I want to come home,” he wrote to her on Facebook. “It really was like a dream when I talked to him and it was amazing,” his grandmother said after speaking by phone with her grandson.
