A teenager from Britain who resurfaced in southern France after disappearing six years ago is expected to return to northern England in the next few days, police said after the boy left a spiritualist mountain community in the Pyrenees.
Alex Batty disappeared at the age of 11 during a holiday with his mother and grandfather in Malaga, Spain, in 2017 and both are still wanted in connection with his disappearance.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said they were working with French authorities to bring Batty back home and to his grandmother, who is his legal guardian, according to French prosecutors.
“He’s getting well cared for by the French authorities at the moment… Our priority is to get him back to the UK and get him back to his family in Oldham as soon as possible, that is expected to happen over the next few days,” GMP Assistant Chief Constable Chris Sykes told reporters.
The Toulouse public prosecution office told Reuters Batty was in the custody of a social welfare service, adding: “We are in close contact with British authorities to organise his return.”
A delivery driver earlier this week spotted the teenager wandering along a road around the southern city of Toulouse, saying the boy later told him he had left a remote mountain community in the Pyrenees.
The driver told media Batty was carrying his belongings including a skateboard and a lamp through a remote forest in the middle of the night when he stopped to assist the boy on his journey back to the outside world.
Sykes on Friday said Batty had spoken to his grandmother via video call on Thursday evening: “She has a whole host of emotions and feelings as you could imagine.”
The whereabouts of Batty’s mother, who vanished with her son in 2017 and may still be out in the mountains, according to the delivery driver’s account of his conversation with Batty, remained unknown.
France’s BFM TV reported Batty’s mother belonged to a spiritualist group without a fixed residence, moving around the region known as a destination for people in pursuit of an alternative way of life in caravans and tents.
A search operation to find her has been started, the television station 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,” Sykes said.
“At the moment the priority is speaking to Alex … but obviously his mother is part of that conversation and investigation.”
