'Abducted' British boy Alex Batty found in south-west France
Gendarmes say 17-year-old found in Ariège is the boy who went missing in 2011
Alex Batty was declared missing at the age of 11 in 2017
GMP
Gendarmes in the south of France say that a 17-year-old they found walking by a roadside in Ariège is Alex Batty, a Briton who went missing at age 11 in 2017.
Motorists had alerted the gendarmerie due to the “unusual behaviour” of the teen as he walked by the roadside near Villefranche-de-Lauragais on Wednesday evening (December 13).
La Depeche reported that he isthought to have been living in a nearby alternative community.
The Villefranche-de-Lauragais gendarmerie, who took the teen into custody, said that he matched the description of Oldham-born Alex Batty.
The Région de Gendarmerie d'Occitanie have since confirmed to The Connexion that the teen is indeed Alex Batty.
"He is in good health, that is all we can say for the moment," a spokesperson for the gendarmerie told The Connexion.
"We have contacted the Greater Manchester Police who will manage communication with his family."
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Missing since 2017
Alex Batty was declared missing by his grandmother - his legal guardian - after he was abducted by his mother and grandfather in 2017.
They were believed to have taken the then-11-year-old to live in an alternative community in Morocco.
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“The reason I believe they have done this is because basically my lifestyle, my belief systems, are not what they agree with – just simply living day to day, how normal people do,” his grandmother told BBC News in 2018.
“They didn’t want him to go to school, they don’t believe in mainstream school.”
Alex Batty was last seen in Malaga on October 8, 2017, with several subsequent unconfirmed sightings in Morocco.
“The safest place for Alex is back home with his grandmother and we need the public’s help to find and return him to her,” said Detective Constable Declan O’Reilly of Greater Manchester Police’s Oldham District.
“She is absolutely desperate for his safe return and when I spoke with her recently she said if there is one thing she could say to Alex it would be for him to please get in touch as his disappearance has left her broken.”
The Région de Gendarmerie d'Occitanie say they do not yet know how Mr Batty came to be in Ariège or how long he had been there.
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