A British teenager allegedly kidnapped by his mother six years ago fled across the Pyrenees after she announced plans to take him to Finland, French police have said.
Alex Batty, 17, told a passing driver “I need a future” after he was found in a remote corner of south-west France in the early hours of Wednesday, carrying only a skateboard and €100 in cash.
French police revealed on Friday that the teenager, who vanished while on holiday in Spain with his mother, Melanie, and grandfather, David, in 2017, had survived on “whatever he found in the fields” as he made a getaway across the Pyrenees.
Antoine Leroy, assistant public prosecutor in Toulouse, said Batty had for six years been living a “nomadic lifestyle” with his mother and grandfather, who were “obsessed about energy and solar panels”. His grandfather is believed to have died about six months ago.
The teenager told police he had been living in “spiritual communities” in Spain, Morocco and France since he was taken from his grandmother, his legal guardian, in October 2017.
Leroy said Batty realised “this has to stop” when his mother announced plans to take him to Finland – but said it was not clear whether the youngster had told her of his intention to leave.
“He just said that he didn’t want to go to Finland. We don’t know more about this,” the prosecutor said.
“He had €100 on him and was trying to get to Toulouse without meeting many people. That’s why he was travelling at night and sleeping during the day.”
Batty, from Oldham in Greater Manchester, is expected to be reunited with his maternal grandmother, Susan Caruana, this weekend after spending two days in the care of social services near Toulouse.
Caruana, who remains his legal guardian, said on Friday she was “over the moon” that he would be coming home: “It’s amazing. It’s an incredible story. It’s unbelievable after all these years. I’m in shock, I can’t believe it. I have spoken to him and he’s well.”
In a statement, she added: “I can’t wait to see him when we’re reunited. The main thing is that he’s safe, after what would be an overwhelming experience for anyone, not least a child. I would ask that our family are given privacy as we welcome Alex back, so we can make this process as comforting as possible.”
Batty was 11 years old when he failed to return from a holiday to Spain with his mother and grandfather, triggering an international search. He was found walking in a remote area of the Aude region at 3am on Wednesday by a delivery driver who stopped and offered him a lift.
The driver, Fabien Accidini, told French media on Friday that the teenager originally gave his name as Zach and said he was “very, very tired”.
“Once he felt reassured, he gave me his real name and told me that he had been kidnapped by his mother five years ago,” Accidini told the French broadcaster BFMTV. He said Batty told him he had spent the past two years “in a spiritual community that was a bit strange with his mother, who is also a bit strange, a bit loopy”.
Accidini added: “He’d had enough. He said: ‘I am 17. I need a future.’ He didn’t see a future for himself there.”
French prosecutors said Batty had not described any physical abuse by his mother or grandfather.
Leroy told a press conference that the spiritual community with whom he had been living was not “a sect”, but that it was divorced from reality. “They would work on the ego, there was meditation work … There was no connection with the real world. They believed in reincarnation,” he said.
The prosecutor said Batty seemed “very intelligent” and had given the gendarmerie a detailed account of his life over the past six years, without being able to state exactly where he had been living.
He added: “He seems calm and at first glance seems to be a normal person. After all these years spent living this way, I’m sure there are psychological consequences … but he seemed to be a normal young teenager.”
Batty told police how he was raised by his mother and his maternal grandmother from the age of two, when his father left home.
At the age of eight he was twice taken by his mother to live in Morocco for several months, French police said, causing conflict between his mother and grandmother. Three years later he was taken to Spain and never returned home.
Police are now investigating the whereabouts of Batty’s mother. Leroy said she may have gone to Finland, as intended, and that there was no arrest warrant for her from the French police.
Chris Sykes, assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said its priority was to ensure the safe return of the boy.
He said Batty’s mother – who does not have parental guardianship – was “part of” the investigation, and added: “We still have some work to do in establishing the full circumstances surrounding his disappearance and where he has been in all those years.”
