For those still following, piece late this PM from our main local regional paper (La Depeche), containing comments from the public prosecutor (that's standard format here, police don't normally make statements). I've been lazy and C&P'd it through Google translate then tried to edit out formatting glitches but there are no doubt some errors and clunkiness in the text so treat with caution.
Oh, and for info the area in question is well known for being a bit of a haven for those who like alternative lifestyles and also those to try and go off grid..
<< " Six years after his kidnapping by his mother and grandfather, the itinerary of the teenager from Manchester, United Kingdom, found near Revel, in Haute-Garonne, this Wednesday, is beginning to take shape. form.
This Friday, Antoine Leroy, the deputy public prosecutor of Toulouse, lifted a part of the veil on the story of this 17-year-old boy and how he found himself near Toulouse in the middle of week.
During his press conference, the magistrate quickly drew up the family portrait, in particular an unstable mother who did not have custody of young Alex. It was her grandmother who took care of it, after a conflict between the two women.
But, on two occasions, his mother had permission to take him on trips to Morocco. When she lost custody, she asked the grandmother again for permission to spend 15 days with Alex in Spain in the summer of 2017. She never brought him back in England, but left for Morocco. "This is where the English authorities considered that he had disappeared," indicates the representative of the Toulouse public prosecutor's office.
Journey between Morocco, the Pyrénées-Orientales, Ariège: It is in this country that Alex Batty spent more than two years. Then, between 2020 and 2021, he left North Africa with his family to come to the French Pyrenees. "His journey shows that he passed through Perpignan, in Aude, as well as Ariège. He passed through these departments but had no fixed attachment there. , notes Antoine Leroy.
Not speaking French, and living quite isolated, he was unable to tell the gendarmes where he stayed precisely. It was recently, a few months after losing his grandfather, when his mother suggested going to Finland, that he decided to stop this life of homelessness and return to England, with his grandmother.
"He understood that it had to stop." He then walked "four days and four nights", to where he was picked up by a young student who makes deliveries at night, with only 100 euros in his pocket. During this walk, especially at night "so as not to meet anyone", he ate what he found in the gardens.
It was the delivery man who brought him after his tour to the Saint-Félix-de-Lauragais gendarmerie.
To the Villefranche-de-Lauragais gendarmes who took him in, he said that he lived in a "spiritual community", not mentioning the word sect, but it sounds very similar. "During all these years, his mother and grandfather moved around with their solar panels and their vegetable garden," reported the magistrate, indicating that he lived independently.
To go from community to community, they traveled “by carpool”. They went to large houses where there were several families, arriving and leaving. All were of various nationalities: Canadian, Indian and worked on "the ego", but also meditation, with a distance from the real world. Bordering on the survivalist trend. But young Alex clarified that he had never been kidnapped.
During this life of homelessness with his mother and maternal grandfather, he explains that he never experienced physical violence in the communities in which he lived. But "he allegedly suffered sexual assault when he was little", indicates the deputy prosecutor.
Today he was "tired but generally in good health". Despite living outside of society, he is "rather intelligent".
Since being taken into the care of the British authorities, 'he has made contact with his grandmother.' His mother is probably in Finland, although this is not certain. He will leave tomorrow from Toulouse or Bordeaux, accompanied by the British authorities, towards England and his family.
For the moment, no judicial investigation has been opened in Morocco, Spain or France. Only the one opened in England at the time of his disappearance is still in progress.
However, the deputy public prosecutor of Toulouse indicated that investigations would take place in the three French departments in which he passed. "We're going to dig as soon as we have a little more. How is it that a minor can stay in France outside of all radars?, asks the representative of the prosecution.>>
https://www.ladepeche.fr/2023/12/15/disparition-dalex-batty-communaute-spirituelle-agressions-sexuelles-durant-lenfance-ce-que-lon-sait-de-litineraire-du-jeune-anglais-11644782.php