Alex Batty (found)

Case background and investigation

Alex Batty grew up in Oldham, Greater Manchester, where his maternal grandmother, Susan Caruana, was his legal guardian. According to the BBC, his mother, Melanie Batty, and his grandfather, David Batty, took him on a pre-arranged holiday to Marbella, Spain, leaving on September 30, 2017. Neither of them had legal guardianship of the boy, who was 11 at the time.

The three were expected back in the United Kingdom on October 8, 2017. They did not return, and Alex was last seen that day at the Port of Malaga. Greater Manchester Police treated the case as an alleged abduction and, in February 2018, said the two adults were wanted in connection with it. Caruana told the BBC she had received a video message in which her daughter explained her reasons, and said the family disagreed about schooling and lifestyle. Police said one line of inquiry was that the group had crossed to Morocco, where Caruana said they had stayed in a commune in 2014.

An international appeal produced no trace of the boy for six years. Alex later described an itinerant existence in communes, caravans and remote houses in Spain and then in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, without formal schooling, the BBC reported. He told The Sun that the early years felt like a holiday but that from about the age of 14 he was doing construction and renovation work, and that he decided he wanted to go back to England.

In the early hours of December 13, 2023, delivery driver Fabien Accidini saw a teenager walking along an unlit road in the rain and offered him a lift. According to Wikipedia, this was between Camon and Chalabre, and Accidini took him to the gendarmerie at Revel, near Toulouse. Alex, then 17, identified himself and sent a message to his grandmother. He initially said he had walked for four days; he later told The Sun the journey took two days and that he had altered details to protect his mother and grandfather.

Alex flew from Toulouse to the UK on December 16, 2023, and went to live with his grandmother, The Guardian and the BBC reported. On December 22, Greater Manchester Police confirmed that they had interviewed him and begun a criminal investigation into alleged child abduction.

In 2025 the force closed that investigation. According to the BBC, police said the family did not support it and that there was no realistic prospect of a prosecution, and Alex had said throughout that he did not want charges brought. Neither Melanie Batty nor David Batty was charged. In May 2026 the BBC broadcast a documentary in which Alex, by then 20, retraced his route.