STORY: A British teen who was found in France after being missing for six years…
is expected to return to his family in northern England in the next few days, police said on Friday (December 15).
That’s after he apparently fled a spiritualist community in the Pyrenees mountains.
In 2017, Alex Batty disappeared at the age of 11 during a holiday with his mother and grandfather to Malaga, Spain.
Both are still wanted in connection with his disappearance.
UK police said they were working with the French authorities to bring Batty home so he could reunite with his grandmother, whom French prosecutors say is his legal guardian.
“On Wednesday, a member of public reported a potential sighting in the Toulouse area of France. The young man (was) identified as Alex and was taken to a French police station. The young man and Alex’s grandmother spoke on a video call last night, and whilst she’s consented that this is indeed Alex, we obviously have further checks to do when he returns to the United Kingdom.”
Delivery driver Fabien Accidini recounted how he discovered Batty wandering along a road.
“(He) was walking in the middle of a forest, in a place that was completely lost, a 20-minute drive from the nearest village and this is not usual, there’s no explanation for someone to be walking around out there so late. And so, on my way back, I thought I should stop and ask him if he was okay, or even just to help him, or at least to bring him back to a village, back to civilization as quickly as possible.
“I took him with me, we continued my rounds (of delivery) and that’s when he told me about his whole story, the abduction with his mother, about his grandmother, his trips to Spain and France. We also tried to contact the consulates and embassies. We didn’t succeed and in the end we called the police.”
The Toulouse public prosecution office told Reuters Batty was in the custody of a social welfare service.
The whereabouts of Batty’s mother, who vanished with her son in 2017 remained unknown.
Manchester police said they were still working to establish the full circumstances of Batty’s disappearance.
And that his mother is, quote, “part of that conversation and investigation”.