British boy Alex Batty, 17, who has not been seen since he was ‘kidnapped’ in Spain six years ago, has been found alive and well in France, officials reveal
A British boy who has not been seen since his apparent kidnapping six years ago has been found alive and well in France, prosecutors said today.
He was with his mother Melanie Batty, then 37, and grandfather David Batty, who was 58.
Both adults were prohibited from being with the boy at the time due to domestic issues.
The party was due to return from Marbella after two weeks, but never returned, prompting police to launch an investigation.
Alex’s grandmother and official guardian, Susan Caruana, who was 62 in 2017, speculated that they had adopted an “alternative lifestyle” somewhere.
Alex Batty, from Oldham, Lancashire, was just 11 when he went missing while traveling with relatives in Spain in October 2017
She said at the time: ‘They didn’t want to [Alex] to go to school, they do not believe in regular education.’
Now prosecutors in south-west France are confident that Alex, now 17, turned up alone in Revel, near Toulouse.
La Depeche, the newspaper that covers the area, reported on Thursday: ‘The Alex Batty mystery is about to be solved.
‘Although he did not show any official document to the gendarmes who took him in, this young 17-year-old boy gave his identity on his own.
‘His face and his story correspond in every respect to that of the Briton kidnapped in 2017. “On Thursday, the public prosecutor of Toulouse confirmed that it is indeed Alex Batty.”
Investigators believed Alex escaped from a rural community at the foot of the Pyrenees.
After days of walking, he was picked up by a truck driver who became suspicious and called the police.
Alex was questioned by the infirm, and – according to La Depeche – ‘he narrated his incredible journey, serene and calm.
‘His story has been verified and appears to correspond to reality. Following this hearing, the teenager was entrusted to the department’s social services pending notification of his relatives.”
Early investigations by the judicial police in cooperation with prosecutors indicate that Alex lived with his mother and grandmother in a ‘spiritual community’, staying mainly in caravans and tents.