Alex Batty, aged 17, was found alive on Thursday December 14. The 17-year-old British teenager had been missing since 2017. The deputy public prosecutor of Toulouse provided an update on the case on Friday December 15.
What happened for almost six years in the life of young Englishman Alex Batty, who disappeared in 2017 and was found on Thursday December 14? The deputy public prosecutor of Toulouse, Antoine Leroy, gave some answers, the day after his discovery near Toulouse in Haute-Garonne. The 17-year-old disappeared in Spain with his mother and grandfather before spending two years in Morocco and then returning to France. “They went to the Pyrénées-Orientales, Aude and Ariège, without a fixed attachment, without staying very long in the places in which they were,” explains the deputy prosecutor.
While his mother wanted to go to Finland, the teenager opposed the idea and chose to leave. “He decided to leave the place where he was to walk for four nights, he slept during the day” and kept himself alive by digging in the gardens and fields. This journey ended on Wednesday night when a student, who was delivering pharmacy products, met Alex Batty. The young Englishman told him his story and the student called the police who picked up the young person in the town of Saint-Félix-de-Lauragaist (Haute-Garonne).
A nomadic community, but not a sect
To investigators, Alex Batty confided that he had left to escape the “spiritual community” of his mother and grandfather, indicates Antoine Leroy. Since leaving the UK, “he has lived by transporting himself from house to house with solar panels, only traveling in carpools, always in places where there were families, with people who were never the same, feeding themselves thanks to the vegetable gardens”, explains the public prosecutor. A community based on questions around “work on the ego”, “reincarnation” but also on “the non-existence of the real world”. The prosecutor specifies that the community in which the young Englishman grew up is not clearly identified as a sect.
When traveling, Alex Batty, his mother and his grandfather who died a few months ago traveled with very few personal belongings. They were traveling with solar panels and “vegetable gardens” indicated the deputy public prosecutor of Toulouse. The teenager did not have a phone within the spiritual community and when he was found. This absence of technology could correspond to the philosophy of life, to the alternative way of life, applied by the spiritual community.
Was Alex Batty subjected to violence?
The teenager indicated “that he suffered sexual assault when he was little”, but not during the six years of his kidnapping according to the deputy public prosecutor. Alex Batty “does not describe any physical violence from anyone” during his life in the spiritual community. According to Antoine Leroy, the young man is “in good overall health” and is “intelligent although not educated for six years”.
No judicial investigation has yet been opened in France. The young man should therefore return to England in the coming days where he should be reunited with his grandmother. As for his mother, “It is probable (…), as we speak, [qu’elle] has gone to Finland”, indicates the prosecutor.