Teenager Alex Batty who disappeared six years ago after being ‘abducted’ by his mother and grandmother during a holiday to Spain has begged authorities not to send them to prison.
The 17-year-old has returned to normal life in Oldham with his grandmother Susan Caruana, who was his legal guardian at the time of his disappearance in 2017.
Both are adamant they do not want to see his mother and grandfather behind bars. It comes as his mother Melanie, 43, last week told friends she had to ‘keep running’ as she went into hiding with her father, David, 64.
‘That’s why I didn’t come home sooner. All I worried about was them getting locked up,’ Alex said, speaking to Good Morning Britain on Wednesday.
Greater Manchester Police confirmed earlier this month that it had launched a criminal investigation into his alleged kidnapping.
His grandmother, 68, added: ‘I used to think about Alex every single day and that was painful. But now I won’t think that way anymore.
‘I don’t want them to go to prison, that’s the last thing that I want.’
After finding out Alex had fled, his mother reportedly made a late-night dash from her remote hideaway in France and is said to have travelled to Spain. The 17-year-old made his escape at midnight on December 11 when his mother Melanie was asleep in bed.
He was found by a delivery driver after he had walked for 22 miles over two days, drinking from mountain springs and sleeping in the woods.
Alex told the programme he began to have doubts about the nomadic lifestyle favoured by his mother when, by the time he was 14, he took jobs in construction, painting and renovating houses in order to earn money to eat.
He was taken across the border from Spain to France where they joined various spiritual ‘communes’ over the years.
‘We stayed in a lot of caravans and we stayed in a lot of houses, always up mountains hours away from any kind of village or anything like that,’ he said.
‘One day I just thought, ok, I can’t take this anymore. I knew that everything was already kind of in place for them to leave where we were so if I were to have left they would be gone by the time the police arrived.’
The transition back to normal life has been challenging since his arrival back to the UK just before Christmas.
‘I’ve had one friend in the past six years that’s been my age. Everyone else that I’ve known has been a lot older than me, so I’m very comfortable talking to adults but with children my age it’s completely different.’
But Alex said he is enjoying being back in the cold and wet British weather, adding: ‘I love the rain’.
Isolated from people his own age and having not attended school since he went missing in October 2017, Alex had become disillusioned by his life forced upon him by his ‘anti-government’, ‘anti-vax’ parent.
The teen even tried to join a top French school earlier this year to follow his dreams of one day working in IT. But this failed when staff became suspicious and called the police.
Now he is looking to enroll in college and has even planned a night out for his 18th birthday next month.
During his time living off the grid, Alex had convinced his mother to move to a rented farmhouse rather than living in the mountains.
He was weary of constantly moving house and working in exchange for food and boarding, and said he only made one friend his own age during his six years away – a Spanish girl he met in a café.
She is said to have forced Alex to live in a ‘spiritual community’ instead of returning to his grandmother, who is his legal guardian.
The teenager added he learned languages by himself and studied maths and computing from textbooks but didn’t attend school.
Alex said he first had doubts about their alternative lifestyle when he was 14 and began considering his goals for the future.
William Turner is a seasoned U.K. correspondent with a deep understanding of domestic affairs. With a passion for British politics and culture, he provides insightful analysis and comprehensive coverage of events within the United Kingdom.
