Alex Batty sent his mum a farewell letter before escaping in the dead of night
Missing teenager Alex Batty left his mother a farewell letter in which he begged her ‘not to be too mad at him’ before escaping from France back to Manchester.
The 17-year-old was abducted by his mother and grandfather when he was 11, and taken abroad to live a ‘non-traditional’ lifestyle with a travelling commune.
He made his escape at midnight on December 11, during which he slipped out undetected and survived for days in the wilderness before being picked up by a French delivery driver.
Alex detailed the moment he decided to leave his family in their French home and how he survived on his own over the last several years.
Batty told his mum ‘not to be too mad’ before making his escape (Picture: PA)
Sitting next to his grandmother in the UK, he told the Sun: ‘It was a normal day and I just decided “ok it’s time to leave.”
‘We had a stupid argument about nothing,’ he told the publication. ‘My mum can argue about anything so it doesn’t take much. She is very set in her views.’
Batty said the fight was the last straw, as he had gotten tired of the hippie ‘pain in the ass’ lifestyle his mother had forced onto him.
But before leaving, he left a note behind which read: ‘Hey mum, I want you to know I love you very much. I am very thankful for the life that you provided for me over the past few years.
‘Don’t worry about yourselves – I’m 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 says he wrote the note twenty minutes before he left, leaving with nothing but a few essential clothes.
Now 17, Alex says he wants to return to the UK and live a normal life
He survived in the wilderness for several days, sleeping outside in the cold woodlands and drinking from mountain springs.
It is thought Alex had been living with his mother and grandfather, who had taken him on the trip to Spain in September 2017 – across Spain, Morocco and France while he was missing.
The pair- who remain on-the-run- wanted to live an off-the-grid, ‘alternative’ lifestyle, which they made Alex participate in.
Alex said: ‘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 he ‘started to pick up slack’ at around 14, taking on odd jobs in construction, decoration, and renovation work.
‘I had a non-existent social life to be honest,’ he said, adding he didn’t go to school and instead learned languages along with some maths and computing after finding a textbook.
He described making only one friend while he was gone ‘and it was the only person really that I’d met for the entire six years that was even close to my age’.
Alex felt he had a rough relationship with his mother after she split with his father when he was only 2 years old.
‘She’s a good person. But she’s just not a great mom. Plain and simple, to be honest,’ he told the Sun. ‘She just doesn’t do motherly things that you’re supposed to do.
‘She’s not very warm and open. She doesn’t really listen much to anyone. She’s set in her ways. You can’t really change her beliefs or anything and that’s just a pain in the a** to deal with.’
While he was on the run, the teen feared his mother and grandfather could get into legal trouble, so he came up with another plan to throw police ‘off his scent.’
Alex Batty’s mother Melanie Batty lived an off-the-grid lifestyle with her son and father
‘I’ve been lying to try and protect my mum and grandad but I realise that they’re probably gonna get caught anyway,’ Alex said. ‘I pretended I had been on such a long journey for that reason.’
Since reuniting with his grandmother in the UK, he can now look forward to spending time with family members, friends and others he grew up with in Greater Manchester, where he was living as a young boy before he disappeared and police say is ‘where he wants to be’.
A police investigation into the circumstances of his disappearance is ongoing.
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The missing teen left his mother a note before escaping in the middle of the night.