Police launch probe into alleged abduction of British teen Alex Batty who went missing six years ago

A criminal investigation was launched into the alleged abduction of British teenager Alex Batty, who was found last week in France six years after his mother and grandfather took him on a vacation and never returned home, Greater Manchester police said Friday.

A criminal investigation was launched into the alleged abduction of British teenager Alex Batty, who was found last week in France six years after his mother and grandfather took him on a vacation and never returned home, Greater Manchester police said Friday.

Batty, 17, returned to Oldham, near Manchester, on Saturday and was reunited with his grandmother — the legal guardian who had made frantic and emotional appeals over the years for his return.

A delivery driver found Batty walking along a road in southern France in the middle of the night Dec. 13. The boy told police he had been living a nomadic lifestyle in Spain, Morocco and France with his mother and grandfather as part of a “spiritual community” and decided to leave when his mother talked about going to Finland.

Authorities in France said last week that they thought his mother, Melanie Batty, could be in Finland and that his grandfather, David Batty, appeared to have died, but neither of those details seemed clear after the teen gave his first interview.

Batty told The Sun newspaper that he feared his mother and grandfather could be arrested on suspicion of child abduction, so he had lied about his escape.

Batty had left the place they had been staying two days earlier — not four days as he initially reported — and provided other details he thought would throw investigators off their trail, he said.

“I’ve been lying to try and protect my mum and grandad but I realize that they’re probably gonna get caught anyway," he told The Sun. “I pretended I had been on such a long journey for that reason.”