He had never spoken before. Alex Batty, the 17-year-old Briton found by chance last week near Toulouse, after having disappeared for six years, spoke to the Sun this Friday, December 22. The one who was placed under protection until he came of age admitted to having lied about certain details of his journey, between Aude and Ariège.
“I lied to try to protect my mother and grandfather but I realize they are probably going to get caught anyway,” he told the English tabloid. “I acted as if I had made such a long trip for this reason,” he said. An argument with his mother, Melanie, who had kidnapped him six years ago – she did not have custody of him – caused the young man to leave two weeks ago. The latter had in fact carefully considered his escape, and was not lost, contrary to what he assured the authorities. “I didn’t get lost. I knew exactly where I was going.
According to information from Le Figaro collected on site from former relatives of Alex Batty, the young man was closer to his grandfather, David – nicknamed Peter in Aude and Ariège – than to his mother. For the last two years, the teenager lived with him in the small village of Camps-sur-l’Agly, in a lodge run by a Belgian couple. He practiced “woofing” there, working on site in the kitchen, cleaning and construction, in exchange for accommodation. Hard daily work for a young person aged 14-15, denounced by several witnesses. Her mother, who called herself Rose, did not live at the lodge. She moved from eco-places to spiritual communities, seeking to establish herself locally or even lead a group. And, sometimes, her son joined her for a few days or weeks. “She didn’t have a good reputation,” whispers a local, who knew the family. Alex finally refused this chaotic lifestyle.
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“Move. No friends, no social life. Work, work, work and don’t study. This is the life I imagined leading if I stayed with my mother,” also detailed the young Briton, originally from Oldham near Manchester. If he insisted on the “work” aspect in his statements to the English tabloid, it was on purpose.
In addition to suspicions of hidden work within the Bastide gîte – the woofing is supposed to be very temporary, but Alex stayed for almost two years – relatives of the teenager confide to Le Figaro that his mother had a tendency to “exploit” his son and his father. “David and Alex paid him a pension every Sunday in exchange for work, but they were the ones who did the work,” underlines one of them. Alex “gave money regularly” to his mother who had the habit of “wasting” it.
Several years ago, after losing her job as a lawyer, Melanie Batty became unstable and, according to our information, fell into drugs. So much so that she lost custody of her son to her own mother, Susan. “I wouldn’t know what was going to happen in my future if I had stayed with my mother,” Alex told the Sun.
Another thing Alex lied to police about: his grandfather’s death, which allegedly happened six months ago. He even claimed to have participated in a meditation-based ceremony to pay tribute to him. Statements which, during our on-site investigations, turned out to be false, the managers of the Bastide gîte having assured us that the septuagenarian was still living with them a few days ago. To The Sun, Alex confirmed he last saw his grandfather on December 9. To protect him and prevent him from being arrested for kidnapping, his grandson gave him up for dead.
The two got along very well, especially since Alex’s father left the family home when he was 2 years old. “He has no memory of his father. David protected him, especially from his mother,” recalls a relative to Le Figaro. According to Alex, his grandfather “kept saying over and over again that ’the reason I came with you is so I can make sure you’re happy and healthy with a roof over your head. “above your head.” This same relative describes the septuagenarian to us as such: “He is a former alcoholic, who was a bit of a fighter in his life. But today he is very calm, very composed, and he is not mean at heart. On the other hand, the departure of his grandson could make him plunge again.”
Also read: In the upper Aude valley, the hard-working life of young Alex Batty
In Alex Batty’s confidences, another element calls out: his mother’s beliefs. He describes it as “very anti-government and anti-vax.” She was “against” the idea of her son returning to England. “She was worried that if I went back to a country and got my ID card back, I would be picked up. His slogan was that I was going to become ‘a slave to the system’,” he explained. This conspiratorial drift appears among many marginal or spiritual groups which are rampant in Ariège and the Upper Aude valley. David, although close to Alex, began this turning point in his life around ten years ago. His Facebook account attests to this. Its main photo depicts a Guy Fawkes mask, popularized by the hacker collective Anonymous. A question is attached to it: “Is this what you think or what they want you to think?”
David’s publications began in 2011 and intensified from 2013. David even seems to have been part of a community; one day he posted after an event at his home: “It’s not your money I’m after, unlike the current system of debt slavery we live in now.” David gradually drifts into criticizing the police, the banks, evoking the imminence of the Third World War or even… microwaves whose waves could make it possible to “control our brain”. At the end of 2013, it seemed to be plagued by unpaid debt problems. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to comply, I know it’s the norm to ‘pay’, but I don’t want to play anymore,” he wrote. For these arrears, he receives a notice of warrant for an arrest, but claims a “vendetta”.
David Batty reappears at the end of 2015, with ever more tendentious publications, even falling into one of the most popular rhetorics among conspiracy theorists: pedophile networks and stolen children.
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Did this conspiratorial drift incite Melanie and David Batty to kidnap Alex, facing a world that seemed hostile and dangerous to them, in which elites manipulate them? If this were the case, this case would resemble on certain points that of little Mia, 8 years old, kidnapped by three men in the Vosges on April 13, 2021. The little girl’s mother is suspected of having ordered this kidnapping to recover his daughter who had been placed with her grandmother. She would have benefited from the help of conspiracy theorist Rémy Daillet-Wiedemann. In Alex Batty’s case, did his mother have the same type of impulse in kidnapping her son? Young Alex’s statements seem to point in this direction, but the mysteries remain numerous.
