Romain Rouillard / Photo credit: Twitter screenshot “Good Morning Britain” (@GMB)
He suddenly reappeared, in the vicinity of Toulouse, around December 15, even though he had not given any sign of life since 2017. Alex Batty, a 17-year-old British teenager, picked up hitchhiking by a driver -delivery man while walking along the road in the pouring rain, had explained to the French authorities that he had been living in a “traveling community” for some time before making the decision to leave. He has since returned to a normal life in his town of Oldham, located north-east of Manchester.
The investigation then revealed that his mother, who no longer had custody of her son, but who had still obtained authorization to take him on vacation, took young Alex Batty to Spain to have him adopted. an alternative lifestyle. A daily story that the young man told this Wednesday morning on British television in the show Good Morning Britainwhile an investigation for child abduction was opened against his mother, but also his grandfather who was part of the trip.
A nomadic life “boring to say the least”
Alex Batty, for example, highlights the lack of interaction with young people his age. “I only met one or two people my age that I became friends with. Everyone else was much older than me. I’m very comfortable expressing myself with adults, but with people of my age, it’s more difficult”, he confided in comments relayed by numerous media, including the Daily Mail.
As time passes, the adolescent sees his future less and less within this alternative community. “We stayed in many caravans and in many houses, always in the mountains, hours from any type of village,” he recalls. A nomadic life, which he describes as being “boring to say the least”, and from which he escaped almost on a whim. “One day I said to myself, ‘Okay, I can’t take it anymore’. It was a normal day. To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to leave. I prepared food for everyone , then around 10:30 p.m., I wrote a note for my mother and left,” he recalls. The trigger, he says, was the need to accept jobs in construction, painting or house renovation in order to meet his needs.
Alex Batty who was found in France after going missing for six years, has told GMB that he does not want his mother and grandfather to get into trouble over his disappearance.
He disappeared when he was 11 after traveling to Spain with them. pic.twitter.com/X3rvkGkIVW
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) January 3, 2024
“All I worried about was that they were locked up”
Accompanied on the set by his grandmother, who had custody of him until her disappearance, Alex Batty does not seem to feel any resentment towards his mother and grandfather whom he does not wish to see “in prison”. “That’s why I didn’t come home before. All I worried about was them being locked up.” A feeling shared by his grandmother Susan Caruana. “I don’t want them to go to prison, that’s the last thing I want,” she assures, while insisting on the “betrayal” of her daughter and her ex-husband who “left heartbroken.”