Alex Batty, the young British man who disappeared in Malaga when he was 11 years old and was found six years later, now aged 17, in France, near Toulouse, left for his country this afternoon. His plane took off at five in the afternoon, via Amsterdam, and will land in London, according to the Toulouse prosecutor, Antoine Leroy.
The young man thus ends his French journey: it was kidnapped by his mother and grandfather and has been touring the Gallic Pyrenees since 2020, leading a nomadic life, without schooling and living in a kind of spiritual community. They moved, moving their own comfort plates and feeding on the garden on duty. No mobile phone.
This way of life (which has allowed them to leave almost no trace of their identity) is what has prevented the authorities from finding him before, although The grandmother reported her missing in August 2017. She is the one who had custody of the young man, due to the instability of his mother (the father had abandoned them).
She asked him for permission to take him to Malaga for a fortnight on vacation. That’s where she lost track. His mother and grandfather took Alex, they spent two years living in Morocco and then moved to France. In all these trips, even changing countries, no one noticed that Alex Batty was missing.
The boy was found early Wednesday morning. His mother wanted to go to Finland and the young man decided that he no longer wanted that itinerant life.. This is what he himself told the gendarmes. He left the spiritual community they were in and has spent the last few four days and four nights walking through the mountainsuntil he was found at dawn by a French student who makes a living delivering medicines in the area.