Who is Alex Batty and how was he found?

Who is Alex Batty and how was he found?

It was the middle of the night on a rainy day in December 2023, when a delivery driver drove past a teenager walking at the side of an unlit, mountain road in the foothills of the Pyrenees in south-western France.

The driver did not know it yet, but he had just found teenager Alex Batty who had vanished six years earlier while on holiday with his mother and grandfather in Spain.

Now, the 20-year-old, from Oldham in Greater Manchester, is retracing his steps across Europe to tell the full story for the first time for a BBC documentary – Kidnapped by My Mum.

But what do we know about Alex and the search to bring him home?

When did Alex go missing?

Alex, who was aged 11 at the time, had travelled to Spain with his mother Melanie Batty and grandfather David Batty for a pre-agreed holiday in Marbella in September 2017.

The pair were not his legal guardians and were due to bring him back home to his grandmother one week later.

Alex was last seen at the Port of Malaga on 8 October that year, the day they were expected to return to the UK.

His disappearance was treated by police as a potential abduction.

An international missing persons investigation was launched, but years passed without a trace.

His mother, who was heavily influenced by conspiracy theories, told Alex to throw away his passport.

She had become engrossed in the “sovereign citizen” movement, which holds governments worldwide to be illegitimate.

Followers believe they can opt out of laws and practices they do not agree with, such as paying mortgages.

Alex previously said he had constantly been on the move with his mother and grandfather and had lived a “nomadic lifestyle” after staying in communes and caravans.

From the south of Spain, the trio spent two to three years pursuing a nomadic lifestyle across France and Spain.

They then headed north into France after living for some time in a commune of about 10 people in a luxurious house in Spain.

They then moved to a spiritual commune in the valleys of the Pyrenees.

Alex had been walking in the Pyrenees for four days when he was found by the delivery driver at 03:00 GMT.

Fabien Accidini said Alex had told him he had been sleeping by day and walking by night to escape being seen and was eating anything he could find in fields and gardens.

All he had was €100 in cash, no mobile phone and was carrying his skateboard as he headed for Toulouse.

Alex previously said he was getting fed up with the “nomadic lifestyle” he was leading and wanted to return to the UK.

“We stayed in a lot of caravans. We stayed in a lot of houses, always up mountains hours away from any kind of village. One day I just thought, ‘OK I cant take this any more’,” he said.

“I knew everything was in place for them to leave where we were so if I were to leave everything would be gone by the time the police arrived.”

Alex returned to live with his grandmother Susan Caruana, who was his legal guardian, in Oldham shortly after he was discovered.

Were any arrests or charges made?

In 2025, police called off a criminal investigation into the disappearance of Alex.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson said a probe into an alleged child abduction had been dropped as his family did not support it and there was “no realistic chance of prosecution”.

Throughout his police interviews, Alex was also adamant he did not want to press charges.

Speaking at the time, Det Supt Matt Walker said: “The right thing to do is bring closure to this chapter of Alex and his family’s lives, particularly as this is the outcome they wished for.”

Melanie Batty and David Batty were not charged in relation to the alleged abduction.

What is the new documentary about?

‘What they used to say is, ‘it’s classified as kidnapping, but it isn’t kidnapping because she’s my mum’,” said Alex in the trailer for the new documentary.

“For me it’s not a story, for me it’s my life.”

Alex, who recently started a family of his own after becoming a father to a baby girl, shares his side of the story where he opens up about his disappearance and how he has now rebuilt his life.

For the first time, he retraces the route of his disappearance across Spain and France, uncovering not just how he was hidden but the belief system that kept him there.

Back in the UK, detectives reflect on the failed attempts to locate him, and his grandmother recounts years of not knowing whether he was alive or dead.

Alex confronts the most complicated truth of all – how he feels about his mother.

Melanie Batty declined to comment on the documentary while David Batty did not respond to the BBC request for comment.