British teen, Alex Batty, breaks silence, reveals letter he left mom night he ran away

Celeb Gist

Explore More

The British teenager who reappeared in France after going missing for six years has opened up about his escape — revealing that he ran away after an argument with his “anti-vax” mother because he was fed up with her hippie “pain in the ass” lifestyle. 

“We had a stupid argument about nothing,” Alex Batty, now 17, said in an interivew with The Sun, just days after returning to the UK and reuniting with his grandmother. 

“My mum can argue about anything, so it doesn’t take much. She is very set in her views.”

The boy said he had been living a “nomadic” lifestyle across Europe with his mother, Melanie Batty, and grandfather as part of a “spiritual community.” In September 2017, when Alex was 11 years old, his mother and grandfather took him on a vacation to Spain and never returned home. 

He ultimately decided to leave and reunite with his relatives in the UK earlier this month, after his mother decided she was going to uproot them again to Finland.

Alex Batty was living with his mother, Melanie, and grandfather David in France back in 2017 when he ran away at the age of 11. ITV

Alex said he feared for what his future would be like were he to stay with his mother, whom he candidly described as “a great person…but not a great mum” on account of her being “set in her ways.”   

“From the past few years I could get a picture of what life would have been like,” the teen said. “Moving around. No friends, no social life. Working, working, work and not studying. That’s the life I imagined I would be leading if I were to stay with my mum.”

He called the radical and unconventional lifestyle his mother lived and had forced on him a “pain in the ass.”

Batty wrote a note to his mother before running off, telling her not to worry about him as he knew how to take care of himself. AP

And so he hatched a plan to leave – something he had considered doing for at least two years and even discussed with his mother and grandfather, 67-year-old David Batty, who helped raise him from the time he was a toddler.

On the night of Dec. 11, while his mother was in bed at the farmhouse where they had been staying in France’s Aude region, Alex placed four T-shirts, three pairs of trousers, a skateboard, flashlight, 100 euros and a Swiss Army Knife into a backpack and headed out.

Before taking off, the 17-year-old left a farewell note for his mother, in which he explained his decision.

“Hey mum I want you to know I love you very much,” read the note, which was obtained by the Sun. “I am very thankful for the life that you provided for me over the past few years.

“Don’t worry about yourself I am sure you won’t get found. Don’t worry about me either, you know I can take care of myself. I love you very much, don’t be too mad with me. Love Alex.” 

Alex said his mother had been staunchly against his returning home to the UK.

Batty sent a Facebook message to his grandmother, Susan Caruana, when he was picked up by a truck driver in France earlier this month. CHRIS NEILL / MEGA

“She was very anti-government, anti-vax,” he said. “She was worried that if I were to go back to a country and get my ID I would be put into care. Her catchphrase was becoming a ‘slave to the system.’”

But he explained that he was tired of working instead of going to school, and having no friends his age or any social life.

The teen was discovered by a delivery driver walking across a bridge near the city of Toulouse in Southern France in the middle of the night in a downpour on Dec. 13.

“I was a little bit worried,” Batty told The Sun while discussing being picked up by a stranger in the middle of the road. 

Although he says he loves his mother, Batty felt she didn’t do her job raising him as the two always had a rough relationship, especially because his parents split when he was only 2 years old. Family Handout

“I thought, ‘What kind of lunatic would pick up another lunatic in the middle of the night in the pouring rain?’”

He lied to the driver that he had left a remote mountain community in the Pyrenees and asked him to use his Facebook account to send a message to his grandmother in the UK.

Batty said he was trying to shield his mother and grandfather from legal repercussions when he lied about crossing the Pyrenees on foot and offered additional false information intended to confuse the police.

“I’ve been lying to try and protect my mum and grandad but I realize that they’re probably gonna get caught anyway,” he told the outlet. “I pretended I had been on such a long journey for that reason.”

French authorities said last week that they thought Melanie Batty could be in Finland and that David Batty appeared to have died.

On Friday, British law enforcement announced they had launched a criminal investigation into Alex’s alleged abduction, which they said would involve his mother.

The teen returned to Oldham, near Manchester, Saturday and was staying with his grandmother Susan Caruana, who is his legal guardian. He said he was happy to be home.

“The house is different now but still feels the same,” he said. “The biggest difference is when I left I was a boy but now I’m 6 feet so I’m too big for the bed. It feels great to be back.”

The 17-year-old said he wants to go to college to study computer science or cyber security or blockchain development, while continuing to study the French language.”

I’m going to be very busy studying and catching up on things,” he told the paper.

With Post wires

ncG1vNJzZmimqaW8tMCNnKamZ2Jlf3R7kGtma2pfo7K4v46bqaKsmai1bsDEnqVmmZyaxW6uwK2rsmWSp7Kit9JmqqKklaOwpnnRnq2emZyoeq2x062cq2WYmnqtscWtZKannWK7qrPHrWShnV2nrq95wLCYsmc%3D