25-12-23, 06:58
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Re: Mum Who Kidnapped Boy When He Was 11, Goes on The Run to Spain
Alex Battys’ Mum in Late Night Dash From Remote Hideaway Hours After Finding Out Teen Left For UK
Alex Batty tells his on-the-run mother 'I don't want you to go to jail' as police launch probe into his disappearance and she flees French bolthole for Spain after teenager returned to UK
Daily Mail 25 DEC 2023
British teenager Alex Batty has urged his on-the-run mother not to hand herself in after police launched a criminal investigation into his alleged kidnapping six years ago.
The 17-year-old went missing aged 11 in 2017 after his mother Melanie Batty, who was not his legal guardian, took him on a pre-arranged trip to Spain with his grandfather David Batty.
The schoolboy never returned home, however, and spent the next six years living a nomadic hippy lifestyle, travelling across Europe with his mother, who has reportedly now fled to Spain, and grandfather.
That was until he plotted a daring escape from the French Pyrenees and he has now been reunited with his grandmother Susan Caruana, 68, at her family home in Oldham, Greater Manchester.
In an interview with The Sun, Alex admitted he lied about spending four days trekking through mountains before being picked up by a delivery driver, hoping it would stop officers from tracking his mother and grandfather down.
Alex, who wants to cooperate with police, has now told the newspaper: 'I don't think they should get in touch with the police because I don't want them to go to jail.'
Being found guilty of child abduction carries a maximum seven-year prison sentence.
After finding out Alex had fled, his mother, 48, reportedly made a late-night dash from her remote *hideaway in France and is said to have travelled to Spain.
Suitcases full of her son's clothes, PlayStation games, a laptop computer, books, games, health food and milk were all abandoned in the £480-a-month four-bed home in the hamlet Villefort, near Chalabre in the Aude.
According to the Sun, Alexs' mother is said to be travelling with a close Italian male friend, Fabrizio, and is only communicating with people via email.
After arriving back in the UK, Alex said that he disagreed with his mother's decisions to take him around Europe but believes that she thought she was acting in his best interests.
He said that she was a 'good person but not a great mum' and doesn't carry maternal traits.
In the days since, Greater Manchester Police have interviewed the 17-year-old following his ordeal and are now investigating the alleged abduction.
Alexs' Note to Mother;
Criminal Investigation Launched Into Abduction of Alex Batty
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