Alex Batty, the British boy who went missing for six years after going on a family holiday in 2017, is expected to return to the UK in the “next few days”, police have said.

Alex claimed he was kidnapped and taken to a “spiritual” commune in France before he managed to escape. He was discovered on Wednesday hiking across the Pyrenees mountains.

Greater Manchester Police said it is working hard with authorities in France to return Alex to his family in Oldham, adding he spoke to his grandmother Susan Caruana in a video call on Thursday night.

Assistant Chief Constable Chris Sykes says: “We are relieved and overjoyed to receive the news from French authorities that Alex Batty has been found safe and well.”

Asked when it was likely Alex would be back in the UK, Mr Sykes said “over the next few days”.

Alex was declared missing by Ms Caruana, who is also his legal guardian,  after he failed to return home from a holiday near Marbella with his mother, Melanie Batty, then 37, and his grandfather, David Batty, 58, in October 2017. 

Police launched an appeal for information on Alex’s disappearance, with both his mother and grandfather wanted in connection with his alleged abduction.

Commune in Morocco

Ms Caruana said in 2018 that her daughter and ex-husband had taken the boy to a commune in Morocco in 2014 and that she believed a disagreement about his care could have been behind the disappearance.

Alex’s aunt, Maureen Batty, 73, said she was told the teenager was “brainwashed” before escaping from the commune as he “didn’t want to lead that lifestyle” anymore.

She told The Daily Mail: “Alex has been brainwashed by the religion David was in. Alex hasn’t had any education while out there, so we don’t know what he’ll be like when he comes home. [He] has had it rough.

“It is a mess. I’ve been told that Alex said that he had escaped and he didn’t want to lead that lifestyle. I just want to know the truth about what’s gone on.”

The discovery emerged after a French student spotted an exhausted youth while delivering medicines in the mountainous region of Aude at around 2am on Wednesday.

‘Walking for more than four days’

Fabien Accidini said the teenager initially claimed his name was Zach after the pair began communicating in English before he learned of his apparent escape. 

He told French newspaper La Dépêche: “We talked for over three hours. Very quickly, he gave me his real identity, Alex Batty, before telling me his story.

“He said his mother kidnapped him when he was 12 years old. Since then he had lived in Spain in a luxury house with around ten people for three years. He arrived in France around 2021. 

“In the middle of the weekend, he decided to leave his mother to join his family in England. He had been walking for more than four days.”

Mr Accidini told reporters Alex had been living with his mother and grandfather in a “spiritual community” after they kidnapped him.

The Villefranche-de-Lauragais gendarmerie, who took the teenager into custody, said that he matched the description of Oldham-born Alex Batty. 

“He is in good health, that is all we can say for the moment,” a spokesman for the gendarmerie told The Connexion. “We have contacted the Greater Manchester Police who will manage communication with his family.”

Detective Constable Declan O’Reilly of Greater Manchester Police’s (GMP) Oldham District said at the time of Alex’s disappearance: “The safest place for Alex is back home with his grandmother and we need the public’s help to find and return him to her. 

“She is absolutely desperate for his safe return and when I spoke with her recently, she said if there is one thing she could say to Alex it would be for him to please get in touch as his disappearance has left her broken.”

A spokesman for GMP said yesterday (Thurs): “This is a complex and long-running investigation, and we need to make further enquiries as well as putting appropriate safeguarding measures in place.”