A British 17-year-old recovered in France six years after going missing in Spain will return to England this weekend, according to a French deputy prosecutor.
Alex Batty, from Oldham in northern England, was picked up by a driver in a mountainous area in southern France.
Police in France and the United Kingdom confirmed his identification.
Police suspect his mother, Melanie Batty, who did not have parental authority, and grandfather David Batty of kidnapping the boy in 2017 when he was 11, under the guise of going on vacation in Spain.
They went to live in alternative lifestyle communes in Spain and subsequently the French Pyrenees.
“He will be handed back to his maternal grandmother tomorrow (Saturday) or after tomorrow (Sunday) at the latest,” said the deputy public prosecutor for the Toulouse region, Antoine Leroy.
He would leave France via the southern city of Toulouse or southwestern city of Bordeaux, he said.
Alex’s grandmother was not able to travel and so the two would be reunited in the UK, he said, adding he was in touch with the British embassy.
Alex’s grandmother Susan Caruana, who according to British media reports is his legal guardian, expressed “relief and happiness” over the boy’s discovery.
“I spoke with him last night and it was so good to hear his voice and see his face again,” she said in a statement released by Greater Manchester Police.
“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.”
Greater Manchester Police Assistant Chief Constable Chris Sykes earlier told reporters, “Our priority is to bring him back to the UK and back to his family in Oldham as quickly as possible… I expect that to happen in the next days.”
Leroy stated that the boy, his mother, and grandfather had traveled via Spain and Morocco before crossing into France.
He led a “nomadic” existence in a “spiritual” community for six years, including two in France, never staying in the same spot for more than a few months.
The adolescent informed investigators that he had not been physically assaulted in the previous six years, but that he had been “s*xually abused when he was… five or six years old.”
Mother ‘likely’ in Finland
The deputy prosecutor described Alex as “bright and very calm”.
Leroy said he chose to go after his mother stated she was leaving for Finland, where she is “likely” to be right now. His grandfather passed away six months ago.
He claimed the 17-year-old walked for four nights in the direction of Toulouse before being spotted by a young delivery man at 3:00 a.m. (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday.
The teenager was cared for by social services, according to Toulouse public prosecutor Samuel Vuelta-Simon.
The prosecutor added that there was no doubt over the boy’s identity.
Alex was last seen in Spain on October 8, 2017, the day he was supposed to return home from a family vacation with his mother and grandfather.
Caruana has stated that she believes Alex’s mother and grandfather took him to live with a spiritual group in order for him to pursue an alternative lifestyle without regular education.
“They didn’t want him to go to school. They don’t believe in mainstream school,” Caruana told The Times of London.
Found By Delivery Driver
The Depeche du Midi regional newspaper said Alex had been found by a student named Fabien Accidini.
Accidini, who delivers medicines to pharmacies in the area, said it was raining hard when he gave Alex a lift in his vehicle.
“He said that his mother had kidnapped him when he was around 12,” the student told La Depeche.
“Since then, he had lived in Spain in a luxury house with around 10 people. He would have arrived in France in around 2021.”
He had lived with his mother in a “spiritual community” in France and had “no animosity towards her but desired to return to his grandmother,” according to Accidini.
La Depeche claimed to have lived in France with his mother and grandfather in a “nomadic community” in the surrounding regions of Aude and Ariege.
Alex spoke to his grandma via video contact on Thursday night, according to Sykes of Greater Manchester Police.
“Whilst she is content that this is indeed Alex, we obviously have further checks to do when he returns to the United Kingdom,” he added.