Star Metro - British teen Alex Batty found in France returns to UK

Alex never returned from that vacation in 2017, when he was just 11 years old, but resurfaced in the middle of the night this week when a driver picked him up along a mountainous area of southern France.

"It gives me great pleasure to say Alex has now made his safe return back to the UK after six years," Matt Boyle of Greater Manchester Police told reporters at the force's headquarters.

Now aged 17, Alex will be returned to his maternal grandmother, with whom the British justice system had entrusted his custody before his mother abducted him.

"I can't wait to see him when we're reunited," Alex's grandmother Susan Caruana -- who according to British media reports remains his legal guardian -- said in a statement released by Greater Manchester Police.

"The main thing is that he's safe, after what would be an overwhelming experience for anyone, not least a child," she said.

Alex's mother, Melanie Batty, has yet to be found but could be in Finland, Toulouse assistant prosecutor Antoine Leroy said earlier.

For the past six years, including two in France, Alex has lived a "nomadic" life in a "spiritual community", never staying more than several months in the same place, he told investigators.

The teen was found by a delivery driver after he had walked for four days, the deputy prosecutor told a news conference on Friday evening.

He is in good health and does not appear to have been abused in the years since his abduction, according to the doctor who examined him.

Alex told investigators he had not suffered any physical violence during the past six years.

Earlier Saturday, the 17-year-old boarded a KLM flight in Toulouse, headed to London via Amsterdam.

He was accompanied by British police officers and a family member, according to the force.

- 'Meditation and reincarnation' -

The teenager told French investigators they had spent time in Morocco before moving to the French Pyrenees, along the border with Spain.

Alex also told investigators that he had spent time in a spiritual community centre focused on "work on the ego, meditation and reincarnation", the prosecutor said.

It was when his mother said she was moving to Finland that he decided to leave, he said.

He had been walking along the road by night to avoid detection, foraging food from gardens and fields along the way.

A student working as a delivery driver, Fabien Accidini, picked Alex up between two villages in the pouring rain in the small hours of Thursday morning.

"He clearly needed help," Accidini told AFP, and since Alex did not speak French very well, he spoke to him in English.

"He was a bit suspicious at first," he added, initially giving a false name. But as the boy helped him with his deliveries to local pharmacies, he began to open up.

"When he told me he'd been abducted, I made him say it again -- it was crazy!" said Accidini.

He lent his mobile phone so Alex could contact his grandmother in England via Facebook to tell her he wanted to come home, and then he got in touch with the police.

While they were waiting for the officers to arrive, Accidini entered Alex's real name into the internet and found the photo of the missing blond schoolboy. "I typed in his first and last name and saw his photo, which was the same as his face today at 17."

Alex told him he hoped to go back to school and study to become an engineer, he added.

"He had a good head on his shoulders," said Accidini.

"He knew that where he was was not real life -- and that he didn't want that life in the future."

S.Lapointe--SMC