METRO
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.
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.
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…
