Moment Alex Batty knew he had to escape nomadic mum as police issue update
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The case of Alex Batty, who was missing abroad for six years, received a major update today when Greater Manchester Police revealed their criminal investigation had been discontinued. Alex and his family would not support a prosecution, the police force said, drawing their enquiries to a close. The teenager's mum Melanie and grandad David failed to return him from a holiday abroad in 2017, instead embarking on an "alternative", nomadic lifestyle, regularly moving around Spain and France.
On December 13, 2023, the teenager handed himself into a police station near Toulouse in Southern France after leaving the isolated farmhouse in The Pyrenees he was living in and being picked up by a delivery driver on a country road. He subsequently moved back to Oldham, Greater Manchester, with his grandmother Susan Caruana where he began to slowly readapt to life in the UK.
Greater Manchester Police today said the inquiry into his disappearance between September 30 2017 and December 13 2023 has officially concluded because there is no “realistic chance of criminal prosecution”. Alex, who vanished when he was just 11, later revealed there was a pivotal moment he had decided to escape - a major argument with his mother over their communal lifestyle.
"I had an argument with my mum and I just thought: 'I'm going to leave because I can't live with her'," he told The Sun, revealing Melanie Batty was planning to relocate them to Finland. "I realised it wasn't a great way to live for my future. Moving around.
