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LONDON — The car’s headlights silhouetted the exhausted teenager strolling alone within the rain in deepest rural France, with a skateboard tucked below his arm.
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“I mentioned to myself, ‘That’s unusual. It’s 3 a.m. within the morning, it’s raining, he’s all by himself on the street between two villages,” supply driver Fabien Accidini recounted.
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From there, the story will get stranger nonetheless. The teenager, it turned out, was Alex Batty, a 17-year-old from Britain who had been lacking since 2017.
U.Ok. police confirmed Friday that {the teenager} discovered by Accidini this week seems to be the boy who vanished at age 11 on a household vacation in Spain. The police mentioned they’re “relieved and overjoyed” he’s been discovered.
However there’s nonetheless a heap of unanswered questions, notably: The place has he been all this time?
Accidini, who noticed Batty on a roadside on Wednesday night time in a distant space of the Aude area of southwest France, bought a number of clues.
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Intrigued to see the teenager alone within the rain with a flashlight, a rucksack and his skateboard, the deliveryman stopped “and requested if he was OK, what he was doing there, if he wanted assist and if he wished me to drop him in a village,” Accidini informed French broadcaster BFMTV.
Initially, Batty was suspicious, giving a false identify, Zac, however he was additionally “very, very drained,” Accidini mentioned. So he climbed aboard and so they bought chatting whereas Accidini completed his spherical.
“As soon as he felt reassured, he gave me his actual identify and informed me that he had been kidnapped by his mom 5 years in the past,” Accidini mentioned. The teenager added that he “then frolicked in Spain and that he’d been in France for the previous two years in a religious group that was a bit unusual along with his mom who can also be a bit unusual, a bit crazy.”
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“He’d had sufficient. He mentioned, ‘I’m 17. I want a future.’ He didn’t see a future for him there.”
In a separate interview with La Depeche, Accidini mentioned Batty “informed me that he had been strolling for 4 days, that he’d left from the mountains. He didn’t actually know the place.”
“He was very thirsty once I picked him up. I gave him some water.”
Batty used Accidini’s cell phone to ship a message to his grandmother. Accidini confirmed it to BFM. It learn: “Whats up grandma it’s me Alex i’m in France Toulouse i actually hope that you simply obtain this message i really like you i wish to come house.”
Accidini known as French police, who then took custody of the lad. The prosecutors’ workplace in Toulouse mentioned it might give extra info at a information convention it scheduled for Friday afternoon.
Higher Manchester Police mentioned Batty has subsequently had a video name along with his grandmother, Susan Caruana.
“While she is content material that that is certainly Alex, we’ve additional checks to do when he returns to the UK,” Assistant Chief Constable Chris Sykes mentioned.
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He mentioned police had been “nonetheless establishing the total circumstances round his disappearance and the place he has been all these years.”
Sykes mentioned Batty would return to kin in Oldham, close to Manchester, in “the subsequent few days.”
“Our principal precedence now could be to see Alex returned house to his household within the U.Ok. and our investigation crew are working across the clock with accomplice companies and the French authorities to make sure they’re all totally supported,” Sykes mentioned.
Higher Manchester Police mentioned the teenager’s mom, Melanie Batty, and his grandfather, David Batty, are wished in connection along with his disappearance and that their whereabouts are unknown. Batty traveled with them to Spain in 2017.
— Leicester reported from Le Pecq, France.
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