British boy
Alex Batty was kidnapped as an 11-year-old – now he has reappeared in the south of France
At age 11, Alex Batty was kidnapped by his mother and grandfather
© Greater Manchester Police/ / Picture Alliance
When then 11-year-old Alex Batty did not return from a family vacation in 2017, his grandmother reported him missing and suspected a kidnapping. Now the Brit has resurfaced – in the south of France.
Alex Batty was 11 years old when he disappeared without a trace. He lived in Oldham in Great Britain with his grandmother, whohad guardianship of him. In September 2017, he was scheduled to travel to Spain with his mother and grandfather for a week-long family vacation. His grandmother was unable to travel due to illness. When he didn’t return from the trip, his worries turned Grandmother immediately contacted the authorities and reported him missing. She said she believed her daughter and her ex-husband had kidnapped her grandson to raise him in a cult and thus enable him to live an “alternative lifestyle”.
Batty had previously lived with his grandmother for three years. His mother had lost custody of him. She believed that an ordinary school was not for her son and that he should instead grow up in an alternative living environment. After a stay in a spiritual commune in Morocco, a court appointed the grandmother as the sole legal guardian.
There was no trace of the missing boy for six years – until last Thursday. The now 17-year-old is said to have appeared in the south of France, several French media report. A courier driver would have found him in the middle of the night.
Between luxury apartment and alternative religious community
The driver, a chiropractic student from Toulouse, was in the process of delivering medication by car when he spotted a figure on the side of a highway around 2 a.m. A young man was running through the pouring rain with a skateboard under his arm. The courier drove past him first. “The second time I passed him, I decided to offer to drop him off somewhere,” the driver says the southern French regional newspaper “La Dépêche du Midi”.
Batty got in with the courier driver and the two started talking. When the driver asked him his name, the young man initially said his name was Zach. “We talked for over three hours! Very quickly he revealed his true identity – Alex Batty – and told me his story,” said the driver.
Alex Batty wandered disorientated through the mountains for four days
Batty says he was kidnapped in 2017 and then “lived in Spain for three years in a luxury house with about 10 people.” Finally he is said to be with his mother and his grandfather stayed in a traveling spiritual community in southwest France. However, he left the community – for his grandmother.
“He had no animosity towards his mother, but he really wanted to find his grandmother. He missed his loved ones very much,” said the courier driver. To get back to England, the 17-year-old hiked through nearby mountains for four days – in the hope To find people who would help him. The Courier said that Batty had “no regrets [über das Verlassen der Gemeinschaft] … he just wanted to live a normal life, see his grandmother again and have a ‘normal’ future – that’s the word he used.”
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“I love you, I want to come home”
The driver lent Batty his cell phone. The 17-year-old sent a message to his grandmother via his Facebook profile. “I love you, I want to come home,” it said. The courier driver then brought him to a police station, where he is said to have slept on the floor that night.
The public prosecutor’s office in Toulouse said on Thursday that the boy had been clearly identified by his family as the missing Alex Batty through photos. According to the French authorities, he should now travel home to his grandmother. Further investigations into Batty’s whereabouts over the last few years will be carried out by British colleagues.
Sources:“The Guardian”“Southgerman newspaper”, “BBC”