Mother of ‘kidnapped’ Alex Batty hunted by Interpol after ‘travelling to Finland’
Alex Batty’s mother is understood to be being hunted by Interpol after the teenage son claimed that she had moved to Finland to see the Northern Lights.
The 17-year-old finally returned to the UK last night more than six years after he disappeared while on holiday near Marbella with his mother, Melanie Batty, then 37, and his grandfather David.
Prosecutors in France said Alex had been found near Toulouse after escaping a rural community where he had been living with his mother and grandfather who had “shunned modern life”.
Mother announced she’d move to Finland
They added that Alex had decided to leave when his mother announced that she had planned to move to Finland.
An investigative source in Toulouse reportedly said that Alex claimed that Ms Batty had travelled to the Nordic country “to see the Northern Lights” and that “the search for her is continuing across Europe”.
The Sun reported that the source added that the search was continuing in France as she “has been placed here regularly over the years, and may well still be hiding in the countryside.”
“All kinds of information is circulating, and a lot of it does not add up.
“If she did travel to Finland, then she would absolutely have needed a passport. This would make tracing her journey relatively easy.”
Greater Manchester Police work with Interpol
Greater Manchester Police are understood to be working with European agency Interpol to find her, according to the newspaper.
The owners of a B&B in the Pyrenees claimed that Alex, whom they had known as Zack, had stayed with them on a number of occasions since the autumn of 2021, and had wanted to return to the UK to get the identity documents he needed to go to school.
Frederic Hambye and Ingrid Beauve owned Gite de la Bastide, a B&B in Camps-sur-l’Agly, claimed that they had offered to drive him to the British Consulate, but that he had told them “he would find a way to return to the UK on his own to get new papers and go back to school”.
The B&B owners said in a statement they uploaded onto their website that they only discovered Alex’s real name “and full story” in the press at the beginning of the week.
‘Keen to help’
Mr Hambye and Ms Beauve claimed that the most recent time the teenager came to stay was at the beginning of this summer.
“We were keen to help him (although we didn’t have parental authority since his family were in the area) and we encouraged him to learn French and study,” they wrote.
“He was eager to go to school and get back to a normal life and for that, he needed his ID,” they said, adding that he “showed a certain aptitude for computers”.
They claimed that Alex left them the previous weekend “to this end” and “to join his mother”.
The couple claimed that they “reiterated to him that he would always be welcome and that if needed, we were there to help him.”
Grandmother campaigned for safe return of grandson
Susan Caruana, his grandmother and legal guardian, spent years appealing for the safe return of her grandson ever since he first disappeared aged 11.
Her daughter had asked to take Alex on a family holiday to Spain along with her father and Ms Caruana’s ex-husband, David, and his grandmother agreed despite concerns.
Ms Caruana said in 2018 she believed Alex may have been taken to Morocco as part of his mother’s pursuit of an “alternative lifestyle”.
He was found at 2am on Thursday by a lorry driver by the side of the road after spending days hiking across the Pyrenees mountains.
Mother wanted place to live in community
Mr Hambye and Ms Beauve said that when the teenager, his mother and grandfather, first approached them Alex “was looking for a place to stay” in a “‘WorkAway’ type formula in which he contributed to the maintenance” of the B&B “in exchange for accommodation and food”.
While Alex’s grandfather stayed with him at the cottage, his mother never did, and instead “was looking for a place to live in a community”, according to the couple.
The couple added that the teenager “left several times to join his mother in her successive places of residence between Aude and Ariege” and that they “didn’t have much contact with her”.
The couple described how Alex “had free access to the fridge and our food and loved to cook” during his visits, and he would go to meet his mother on Sundays.
“He was also part of our family and had good relationships with our kids.”
Greater Manchester Police have been approached for comment.
