Alex Batty disappearance: Missing teen makes first public comments since return

Missing British schoolboy Alex Batty. Photo / Greater Manchester Police

Alex Batty, the British teenager found in France after being missing for more than six years, has said he is “happy to be home for Christmas” in his first public remarks since returning to the UK.

The 17-year-old, who disappeared while on holiday with his mother, Melanie Batty, then 37, and his grandfather, David, returned home on Saturday.

Alex was reunited with his grandmother Susan Caruana, who is his legal guardian, in Oldham, Greater Manchester, on Saturday night.

Speaking to the Telegraph, the teenager, who was returning from a trip to the shops, said: “I’m really sorry I can’t say much... but there’s no doubt I’m happy to be home for Christmas.”

Alex Batty was supposed to return to the UK with his family. He never returned, sparking an international investigation.

As he returned home, a small dog ran out of the front door of his grandmother’s house and down the street. She shouted after it: “Don’t you go missing like Alex,” before ushering the pet back inside.

Alex was found near Toulouse on December 13 after leaving the rural community where he had been living with his mother and grandfather, who had “shunned modern life”.

On Monday, it also emerged that British expats who knew his mother believed she was a “conspiracy theorist” who thought Covid was “created by the state to control people”.

She is believed to have travelled to Finland shortly before Alex was discovered wandering alone in the Pyrenees, and was said by locals to have been living under a different name in the remote region.