Alex Batty: Police launch abduction investigation into disappearance of British teen

Police say they have launched a criminal investigation into the alleged child abduction of 17-year-old Alex Batty, who went missing while on holiday in Spain at the age of 11.

Officers from Greater Manchester Police have now interviewed Alex following his return from France.

Police previously said they would not be able to confirm the investigation's nature until Alex provided a statement.

The teenager, from Oldham, was found walking in the French Pyrenees.

He was picked up by a delivery driver who spotted him on a road near Toulouse in the early hours of a rainy morning last week, six years after going missing.

His mother and grandfather, Melanie and David Batty, had left Greater Manchester with Alex for a pre-arranged week-long holiday to Marbella in Spain on 30 September 2017.

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

Alex's grandmother, Susan Caruana told the BBC in 2018 that she believed Alex's mother and grandfather had taken him to live with a spiritual community in Morocco.

She said at the time they were seeking an alternative lifestyle and did not want Alex to go to school.

It is understood that, since that time, Alex had been living in the remote Pyrenean valleys, travelling about from place to place in a kind of itinerant commune.

The area in the foothills of the Pyrenees is known for attracting people in search of alternative lifestyles.

Alex was met at Toulouse airport by a family member before flying back to the UK last Saturday.

In an interview with the Sun, he said he lied about details of his escape, including how long he had been walking "to try and protect my mum and grandad but I realise that they're probably gonna get caught anyway".

"I didn't get lost. I knew exactly where I was going," he told the tabloid, describing his journey as a two-day hike, first to the town of Quillan to pretend to ask for directions, then on towards Toulouse.

He described his life in Europe as like a holiday at first, which got progressively harder as he began growing up.

"For the first few years when I was in Spain, it was a vacation really. Spending most days doing whatever I wanted, reading, drawing, going to the beach," he said.

"That was until around 14 where I started ... a lot of construction work, demolition work, painting walls, renovation work. I had a non-existent social life.

"I started weighing up the pros and cons of each 'lifestyle' and after a couple of months I realised... England was definitely the way forward."

He said he wanted to tell his mother and grandfather that he was "sorry for leaving, but it was necessary for my future".

"I'd tell them I love them, he added. "All's good, [I'm] happy - very happy actually."