London, Thanasis Gavos

Alex Batty, now 17, described the adventure he lived in the last six years, which he spent living a nomadic life with his mother and grandfather who had “kidnapped” him, in an interview with the Sun newspaper.

As he tells the Sun, he began to have doubts about the lifestyles of the adults around him when he was 14 or 15 years old. He had recently persuaded his mother to move into a rented farmhouse.closer to culture» and leave the mountains.

Last week he had an argument with her and decided to leave. “She’s a great person and I love her, but just she’s not a great mom“, said the young man.

Among other things, he stated that in the last six years she has only made one girlfrienda girl from Spain he had met in a cafe. He didn’t go to school even once and taught himself foreign languages, mathematics and computers. whenever he himself found an exercise book.

They moved constantly, with him constantly working and having no social life.

His desire to live as a “normal” young man was strongly fueled by his decision to study to become a software engineer.

“I realized it wasn’t a nice way to live for my future. The cloud that had covered me dissipated because I began to weigh everything again, the pros and cons of England. “I didn’t know what would happen to my future if I stayed with my mother,” Alex said.

He also stated that he initially lied to the authorities and the French distributor who helped him that he had been roaming the mountains for four days so as not to betray the area where his mother and grandfather lived because he did not want them to be arrested.

Young Alex had been ‘kidnapped’ by his mother Melanie and grandfather David while they were on holiday in Spain. Since then, they lived in a shared house with frequent trips to France and Spain.

The British teenager was spotted last week walking wearily outside of Toulouse by a French distributor, to whom he confided that he had lived in various locations as part of a “spiritual community” since 2017, and that he had left there trying to return to Oldham, England, and his grandmother, who is his legal guardian.

He walked for two days having traveled 35 kilometers when he was spotted by the French driver, who eventually took him to a police station. He had with him a backpack with some clothes, a skateboard, a flashlight, 100 euros and a Swiss army knife.

Alex returned to Oldham last Saturday, where he has been reunited with his grandmother.