Alex Batty, British teen found in France after missing for 6 years, breaks his silence: "I've been lying"

A U.K. teen who resurfaced in France six years after going missing when he was 11 years old, has told a newspaper that he decided to return to Britain because he wanted a better future. Alex Batty, now 17, also said that he lied about the details of his escape to protect his mother and grandfather from police.

Batty had disappeared while in Spain with his mother and grandfather in October 2017 but turned up in a mountainous area of southern France last week.

Batty told the Sun tabloid in an interview published on Friday that he had chosen to leave the pair after becoming fed up of drifting around Europe with them.