The British teenager found near Toulouse last week was interviewed on his return to the United Kingdom.
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After questioning Alex Batty upon his return to the United Kingdom, Manchester police have opened a criminal investigation for “kidnapping”, they announced on Friday December 22. “Manchester Police have launched a criminal investigation into child abduction, to understand the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Alex Batty from September 30, 2017 to Wednesday December 13, 2023”she detailed in a brief press release.
Missing since 2017 and a vacation with his mother and grandfather in Spain, the 17-year-old young man was found on December 13, in the middle of the night, by a delivery driver while he was walking along a road near Toulouse. He returned to Oldham, in the Manchester region, on December 16 after six years of a nomadic life.
Raised in self-sufficiency, he says in an interview with the tabloid The Sun having started thinking about leaving when he was 14 or 15 years old. “I realized that this was not a very good lifestyle for my future”, explained the young man who, he says, wants to become a computer engineer. He also admitted to having lied to the French police about his journey during his flight, for fear that his mother and grandfather would be arrested for child kidnapping.
