British Police launch criminal investigation into Alex Batty's disappearance

The Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has launched a criminal investigation into the case of Alex Batty, the British minor who disappeared in Spain in 2017 and who was located last week in France after allegedly escaping from a spiritual community.

GMP agents met with Batty after his return from France, an essential requirement so that the security authorities could confirm the nature of the investigation, according to information collected by the British BBC.

Batty was kidnapped by his mother and grandfather during a holiday in Marbella and had since lived in a traveling “spiritual community” in the mountains between Ariège and Aude, on the French side of the Pyrenees.

When his mother informed him that they were going to Finland, the now 17-year-old teenager left the community with the intention of joining his family in England.. The young man walked for four days until a delivery man found him on a road.

Batty, who returned to the United Kingdom last Saturday, traveled to Oldham, near Manchester, where his grandmother and legal guardian, Susan Caruana, lives.. The French authorities are also investigating possible sectarian behavior in the aforementioned community.