Six years his grandmother waited in the suburbs of Manchester to hear the sound of his voice again. It is now official, the young man found wandering in the night from Tuesday to Thursday on a road in Aude is indeed Alex Batty, the British boy kidnapped in 2017, when he was 11 years old. And we now know a little more about the circumstances, as improbable as they are fortunate, of his reappearance.
A caring student on the way
When La Dépêche du Midi revealed Thursday that the child who disappeared in 2017 had been found, he was in the premises of the gendarmerie of Revel (Haute-Garonne). But we now know who led him there. This is Fabien Accidini, a Toulouse chiropractic student, who, at night, delivers to pharmacies in Lauragais. According to the story he gave to BFMTV, he was driving on a road in Aude around 3 a.m. when he saw a young boy walking in the night, in the rain, “with a skateboard under his arm and a lamp torch.”
The student continued his way towards the next village, knowing that he was going to pass through there again anyway. And, on the way back, he stopped to inquire about the state of this walker, who seemed exhausted. The stranger, at first “fearful”, ended up agreeing to get into the van. The teenager first tells him his name is Zack, then over the course of the tour, he ends up telling his savior – in English – his true identity and his “incredible story”. Fabien Accidini had no trouble confirming his statements by tapping on the Internet. In his van with Alex, then with the Revel gendarmes
What was he doing there?
Alex Batty was the subject of a family kidnapping in 2017. His mother and grandfather, who did not have custody of him, took advantage of a family vacation in Malaga, Spain, to take him away from his grandmother. mother, Susan Caruana. When she reported him missing, she suspected they had taken him to an alternative spiritual community. She was on the right track. Because Alex, 17 years old today, explained that he had been walking for four days after leaving the itinerant community, traveling through the mountains of Aude and Ariège, where he lived with his mother. He wanted to make a life for himself and find his grandmother in England.
“It’s quite incredible”, for his dear grandmother
After trying in vain to contact her via Fabien’s Facebook, the “ghost” was able to speak with his grandmother, whose emotion we can guess. “I was talking to a boy when he was with us and now I’m talking to a man. It’s quite incredible when you don’t know if someone is dead or alive,” she told the Times.
On the way back
This Friday, Toulouse public prosecutor Samuel Vuelta-Simon told AFP that Alex had been “sheltered” by social services. His repatriation to Oldham, his town of origin, and his grandmother’s home is underway in liaison with the British authorities. The investigation into the kidnapping of Alex Batty is being led by Manchester Police. Cooperation with the French authorities will certainly be established to find the teenager’s mother and her famous community.