Police say they’ve launched a criminal investigation into the alleged abduction of British teenager Alex Batty who was missing for six years
A criminal investigation was launched into the alleged abduction of British teenager Alex Batty, who was found last week in France six years after his mother and grandfather took him on a vacation and never returned home, Greater Manchester police said Friday.
Batty, 17, returned to Oldham, near Manchester, on Saturday and was reunited with his grandmother — the legal guardian who had made frantic and emotional appeals over the years for his return.
A delivery driver found Batty walking along a road in southern France in the middle of the night Dec. 13. The boy told police he had been living a nomadic lifestyle in Spain, Morocco and France with his mother and grandfather as part of a “spiritual community” and decided to leave when his mother talked about going to Finland.
Authorities in France said last week that they thought his mother, Melanie Batty, could be in Finland and that his grandfather, David Batty, appeared to have died, but neither of those details seemed clear after the teen gave his first interview.
