Alex Batty 'flying back to the UK TODAY' for re-union with his gran

Alex Batty is expected to arrive back in the UK later this afternoon ahead of a re-union with his grandmother after six years apart.

Toulouse deputy prosecutor Antoine Leroy today announced the 17-year-old would be on a flight from Toulouse Blagnac airport to London ‘accompanied by members of the British police services'. He will then transfer on to his grandmother’s house in Oldham, Greater Manchester, for an emotional reunion.

The teenager was 11 when he first went missing in 2017 after going on a family holiday to Spain with his mother Melanie and grandad David. His grandmother - and legal guardian - Susan Caruana, said she believed her ex-partner and daughter had run away because they wanted Alex to have an 'alternative lifestyle'.

READ MORE: 'He's coming home': Grandmother's joy as missing Alex Batty is found in France

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In the early hours of Wednesday, six years after going missing, the teenager was found walking alone near the city of Toulouse by student Fabien Accidini. The teenager told French officials he had been hiking in nearby mountains for more than four days in an attempt to return to England.

He had been living as part of a nomadic 'spiritual community' and had spent time in Morocco and the Pyrenees but decided the lifestyle 'had to stop' when his mother revealed plans to go to Finland, according to the French prosecutor in Toulouse.

The M.E.N. has learned Greater Manchester Police has sent a small team of officers to Toulouse to bring Alex 'home'.

Earlier today, it was reported that the missing teen tried to enrol at a French school last month, but nobody worked out who he was and police had taken no action.

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