Alex Batty, the British teenager who went missing six years ago, has revealed that he fabricated the story about his four-day journey in order to protect his mother and grandfather from police. In an interview with The Sun, Alex said doubts about his nomadic lifestyle began when he was 14 or 15 years old, but it was his ambition to become a software engineer that drove him to abandon the lifestyle in the French Pyrenees. The 17-year-old was found walking along a road in France, and is now back in the care of his legal guardian, his grandmother in Oldham.
The life he could foresee if he stayed with his mum involved “moving around, no friends, no social life. Working, working, work and not studying,” the teen said, describing a socially isolated adolescence. Already present feelings of doubt grew stronger a year ago when his dreams of becoming a software engineer felt far away. A year ago, he raised the idea of returning to England with his grandfather who he said was alive when he escaped earlier this month, despite French police speculation he may have died months ago.
Alex told the interviewer that he fabricated the story, hoping it would stop police being able to track his mother and grandfather down, fearing they could be arrested on suspicion of child abduction. Alex added that he had been lying to try and protect his mum and grandad, but realises that they are probably going to get caught anyway. The reunion with his UK family was reportedly emotional. The teenager said he has ambitions to go to college, continuing to learn French and study computer science.
Alex was picked up by a delivery driver who saw him on a road in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, near Toulouse in the early hours of a rainy morning. The driver, French pharmaceutical student Fabien Accidini, said Alex told him he had been walking in the Pyrenees for four days and four nights, sleeping by day and walking mainly by night to escape being seen. All he had was €100 in cash, no mobile phone and he was heading for Toulouse, and he fed on anything he could find in fields and gardens.
Alex’s mother and grandfather left Greater Manchester with Alex for Spain on 30 September 2017 and he was last seen at the Port of Malaga on 8 October that year, the day they were expected to return to the UK. Alex’s grandmother told the BBC in 2018 that she believed Alex’s mother Melanie Batty and the grandfather had taken him to live with a spiritual community in Morocco. There are no details provided about the current whereabouts of Alex’s mother and grandfather
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