Alex was just 11 when his mum and grandad took him away on what was supposed to have been a two-week family holiday (Picture: PA)

Alex Batty’s first public comments on his return to the UK were to say he’s ‘glad to be home for Christmas’.

He was just 11 when his mum and grandad took him away on what was supposed to have been a two-week family holiday to Spain.

But that fortnight’s trip would turn into six long years and span at least three countries before Alex, now 17, was found walking alone on a remote stretch of road in the French Pyrenees.

Investigators either side of the Channel are now working to piece together how and why he disappeared – and what happened in the time he was gone.

Here is everything we know so far:

When did Alex vanish and what have we heard about the reasons why?

Alex, originally from Oldham, Greater Manchester, went missing while travelling with his mother, Melanie, and grandfather, David, in Marbella in October 2017.

The trip was pre-arranged but neither relative was his legal guardian and the alarm was raised when they failed to return him.

His grandmother, Susan Caruana, has said she believed the pair took him away planning to live an ‘alternative lifestyle’.

Alex with his mum and grandad in a Facebook video sent back home Alex Batty Melanie and grandfather David

Alex told French officials he had experienced a nomadic way of life in Spain, Morocco and France with them as part of a ‘spiritual community’.

He said the family moved from place to place, grew their own food, meditated and contemplated reincarnation and other esoteric subjects.

Toulouse Assistant Public Prosecutor Antoine Leroy told reporters he knew the life he was having with his mother ‘had to stop’ after she announced intentions to move to Finland.

Who found him?

Alex was picked up by chiropody student Fabien Accidini near the French city of Toulouse in the early hours of December 13 after walking across the Pyrenees ‘for four days and four nights’.

Fabien Accidini said the boy told him ‘that he had been kidnapped by his mother’ years ago.

He added ‘that he’d been in France for the past two years in a spiritual community that was a bit strange with his mother who is also a bit strange’.

Mr Accidini said he did not initially believe the story but later agreed to call the police.

He said: ‘After I called the police to explain the situation, when the cops arrived, that’s when I realised the whole story (was real).’

The student said Alex did not seem angry at being held in the ‘community’ and said he had not been chained up – although it was unclear if he had been allowed to leave at any time.

Mr Accidini said: ‘He didn’t have regrets (about leaving the community)… he just wanted to live a normal life, to see his grandmother again and to have a normal future, that’s the word that he used.’

Where was Alex living and who did he stay with?

Mr Accidini said Alex told him he spent three years living in a luxury house in Spain with 10 others before leaving for France in 2021.

Prosecutor Mr Leroy said the teen had spent the past two years in different areas across the south of the country, living in ‘spiritual communities’ with his mother, but not in a sect.

The family he had been staying with said Alex had been living on-and-off in their remote mountain farmhouse since autumn 2021, where his grandfather, David Batty, worked as a handyman in exchange for their room and board.

Gite de la Bastide, in a remote part of the Pyrenees, where teenager Alex Batty was living with his grandfather David Batty (Picture: Steve Reigate)

Owners of Gite de la Bastide, Frederic Hambye and Ingrid Beauve, said Alex’s mother, Melanie Batty, did not live at the property and during that time she stayed in ‘successive places of residence between Aude and Ariege’ – around 50 kilometres north and 120 kilometres west of the farmhouse.

In a statement obtained by MailOnline, they said: ‘As far as we know, she (Ms Batty) was looking for a place to live in a community. La Bastide does not have this ambition. Nor are we a spiritual community.’

The statement added: ‘As time went on, we saw him as part of our family and we think he appreciated the stability and security we represent for him.

‘We encouraged him to learn French and study. In particular, we helped him find a school where he could be admitted without prior education. He showed a certain aptitude for computers.

‘He was eager to go to school and get back to a normal life – and for that he needed his ID which he told us he no longer had.

‘When we learned that he did not have an ID, we offered to drive him to the British Consulate. He told us he would find a way to return to the UK on his own to get new [identity] papers and go back to school. To this end, he told us, he left on December 17 to join his mother.’

They said they knew Alex as Zach and he arrived at the gite with his grandfather and mother, though Ms Batty was said to have never lived there.

During his stays, Alex had his own room, unlimited free internet access, and freedom to come and go as he pleased, they said – adding that he also liked to cook, participate in life at the gite and enjoyed cycling and visiting the beach.

They said he also got on well with the pair’s children and ate dishes prepared by Ms Beauve and Mr Hambye’s that included beef stew, chocolate cake and pasta bolognese.

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Alex would reportedly accompany the couple to the nearby market to buy tuna sandwiches and meet his mother, with whom Ms Beauve and Mr Hambye said they had little contact.

The pair said the boy stayed for ‘some longer and shorter periods’ and would also visit his mother.

The property is in Camps-sur-l’Agly, they said, a commune that had a population of 51 people in 2020, according to the French census.

Tourists, hikers, cyclists and horseback riders travelling in the area are said to visit the site.

How is he doing?

Alex was described as ‘tired’ but ‘in good health’ after being checked over by French officials and seemed ‘intelligent’ even though he had not attended school for six years.

Mr Leroy also said the boy did not appear to have been subjected to any physical violence.

French public prosecutor Antoine Leroy (centre) holds a press conference about missing British teen Alex Batty, at the Palais de Justice in Toulouse (Picture: AFP via Getty)

Assistant Chief Constable Matt Boyle said Greater Manchester Police will 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.

He told reporters: ‘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.’

Where are Alex’s mum and grandad now?

Alex’s mum Melanie is believed to have moved to Finland although her exact whereabouts remain unknown.

A friend, Susie Harrison, told TheSun she last saw Ms Batty a few weeks ago.

Describing her as a ‘conspiracy theorist’, she said: ‘She believed Covid-19 was not real, that it was created by the state to control the people.

‘I don’t know what she did for money, but I know she gave therapeutic massages. She really wanted to set up a spiritual community here in the south of France.’

Mr Leroy said: ‘It is possible that the mother at this time has in fact gone to Finland as she planned.’

Melanie Batty (dressed in white) sitting next to her father David Batty (in denim shirt) and her son Alex Batty (in Black T-shirt) at the Esperaza market in June 2023 (Picture: Steve Reigate)

And an investigation source told The Sun: ‘The boy [Alex] claims that his mother has gone to Finland to see the Northern Lights, so the search for her is continuing across Europe.

‘This does not mean that the search has stopped in France – she has been placed here regularly over the years, and may well still be hiding in the countryside.’

French prosecutors have said her father and Alex’s grandfather David died six months ago, but even this is far from certain.

No record of Mr Batty’s death has been filed, and neighbours in the hamlet of La Bastide, near Carcassonne, where they once lived, said they saw him looking fit and well within the last month.

What happens next?

Police are now considering whether to open a criminal investigation into the disappearance.

Mr Boyle 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.’

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He was just 11 when his mum and grandad took him away on what was supposed to have been a two-week family holiday to Spain.