:Public prosecutor Antoine Leroy (C) holds a press conference about missing British teen Alex Batty, at the Palais de Justice in Toulouse, southwestern France, on December 15, 2023. (Photo by Ed JONES / AFP)
London: A French prosecutor said on Friday that the mother of a British teenager who was found six years after he went missing may have gone to Finland and that his grandfather appears to have died.
The 17-year-old, Alex Batty, was found Wednesday in southwest France. British police have said that his mother, Melanie Batty, and his grandfather, David Batty, were wanted in connection with his disappearance in 2017.
But the French prosecutor, Antoine Leroy, said at a news conference in the southwestern French city of Toulouse that his mother has probably left France for Finland and that his grandfather is thought to have died about six months ago.
Leroy said the trio appears to have led a nomadic life, traveling with solar panels and moving from place to place, before they parted ways. He said they lived in Morocco before moving to the French Pyrenees.
The teenager apparently didn’t want to follow his mother to Finland and walked for four days in southwest France before being picked up by a delivery driver who left him in the custody of French police.
