The 17-year-old British boy, who disappeared in 2017 and was found this week in France, near Toulouse, was put “sheltered” by social services and must be repatriated “quickly”.
“We are waiting for the grandmother to come and get him. We are waiting to set up repatriation with the British,” declared the public prosecutor in Toulouse Samuel Vuelta-Simon to AFP.
“He is sheltered. Social services have taken care of him”he added without specifying the exact location where Alex Batty was.
“We are in contact, of course, with the British police (…) We are in close contact with them to organize” this repatriation, he said again, specifying “recognition is well established, there is no problem”.
Police in Greater Manchester, in the northwest of England, where the teenager comes from, said in a statement on Thursday that they were in contact with the French authorities to obtain details.
“This is a complex and lengthy search. Further investigations are necessary.”said a spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police.
According to the BBC, which cites a police source, the young man, who is in good health, claimed not to have suffered ill-treatment.
Then aged 11, he disappeared abroad while on vacation with his mother and grandfather, recalls the British media.
His grandmother, who had custody of him, told the BBC in 2018 that she believed Alex’s mother and grandfather had taken him to live in a “spiritual community” in Morocco.
