Teenager Alex Batty has returned to the UK six years after disappearing while on holiday in Spain with his mother and grandfather, police said on Saturday.
Detectives told a press conference at Greater Manchester police HQ that the teenager, who was 11 when he went missing, met his step-grandfather at Toulouse airport earlier on Saturday before flying back to the UK.
Officers are yet to take a statement from him or establish whether a criminal investigation into his disappearance will be opened.
Matt Boyle, assistant chief constable, told reporters: “It gives me great pleasure to say Alex has now made his safe return back to the UK after six years.
“Earlier today, Alex met with a family member alongside Greater Manchester police officers at Toulouse airport before heading back to the UK.
“This moment was undoubtedly huge for him and his loved ones, and we are glad that they have been able to see each other again after all this time.”
Asked if a criminal investigation will be opened, he said: “Speaking with him [Alex] at a pace that feels comfortable to him will ultimately determine how this case is progressed, and whether there is a criminal investigation to ensue.
“Our continued focus is supporting Alex and his family, in partnership with other local agencies – to ensure that they are safe, their wellbeing is looked after, and his re-integration with society is as easy as possible.
“We are yet to fully establish the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, but no matter what, we understand that this may be an overwhelming process.
“He may now be six years older than when he went missing, but he is still a young person.”
Boyle said the force would not comment on what the youngster was doing while abroad following the “detailed” disclosures by the French authorities, as they have not yet received a statement from him.
“We are aware the French authorities disclosed detailed information yesterday during their press conference relating to what Alex may have been doing and where he has been over his years missing.
“Greater Manchester police are yet to obtain any formal statement from Alex and therefore we cannot comment at this time.”
Alex’s return to England capped a dramatic few days since a delivery driver spotted a blond-haired figure tramping up a rain-lashed remote mountain road in the French Pyrenean foothills on Thursday morning.
As he approached, Fabien Accidini noticed a skateboard tucked under the walker’s
arm, its owner surprisingly young and a little dishevelled.
Only when Accidini Googled the boy’s name and saw a picture of the smiling child reported missing six years earlier, did he realise that this would be the end of an international search.
Alex’s immediate future will involve attempting to restart his life in Greater Manchester, having spent years living a nomadic life in “spiritual communities” with his mother and grandfather.
French officials said Alex decided to leave this lifestyle only when his mother said she wanted to go to Finland. When found by Accidini, the teenager had been walking alone for four days and nights.
Alex turns 18 on 13 February, facing adulthood with no qualifications and no recent schooling. French prosecutors say the teenager is in good health and does not appear to have been abused in the years since his abduction.
Once he returns home, Alex will finally be looked after by his maternal grandmother, to whom the British justice system entrusted his custody before his mother allegedly abducted him in Spain.
Yet as he prepares for his new life, several questions remain, including how did such a long-running abduction investigation involving a child appear to make such little evident progress before his chance finding last week?
Some UK officers have subsequently compared the case with the intensive policing efforts to trace Madeleine McCann, who has been missing since May 2007, although others point out that there are obvious differences between the cases.
Another pressing question is the current whereabouts of Alex’s mother, Melanie. Although she is yet to be found, the Toulouse prosecutor suggested she may have travelled to Finland.
And what happened to his grandfather, David? Reports suggest Alex told police he may have died six months ago but it is unclear where he might have been buried.
At the time of Alex’s disappearance, Caruana said she believed Melanie and David had taken him abroad and “got involved with a cult”.
The episode has shone a spotlight on the vast mountain wilderness of France’s Aude department, where Alex was found last week, and the communities that live there.
Anne-Marie Charvet, a former prefect of Aude, said more than 10 years ago that the department was becoming a haven for what she termed “micro-groups” specialising in alternative medicine – like reflexology or energy therapy – and other methods she said flirted with charlatanism but were “likely to attract psychologically fragile people”.
Simone Risch, president of the Toulouse group Infos Sectes (Cult Info), said Aude was often a haven for those wishing to live on the margins of modern society, particularly conspiracy theorists such as One Nation.
Local officials describe what they call “esoteric phenomena” emerging in the region, including the Order of the Solar Temple, which claimed its authority descended from the grand masters of the Order of the Temple, a medieval order of knights that was suppressed in the 14th century.
According to the French body Miviludes (the interministerial mission for vigilance and the combat against cult organisations), about 70,000 children are living in cults in France, where such organisations are believed to have about 500,000 members.
However, French prosecutors have dismissed the suggestion that Alex was in a cult, instead suggesting he was part of an “itinerant spiritual community”.
On Friday Leroy said Alex seemed “very intelligent” and “calm” but added he was certain there would be “psychological consequences”.
It is the nature of these consequences that will determine how smoothly Alex swaps his old life in the brooding wilderness of the Pyrenees for a future among the redbrick terraces of Oldham.
