Alex Batty: The haunting words the boy told a French lorry driver after disappearing six years ago

Missing British boy Alex Batty, from Oldham, told the French lorry driver who found him walking alone on an isolated country road: "My mother kidnapped me when I was 12 years old."

Startling details of 17-year-old Alex Batty’s six years as a missing person emerged on Thursday evening. Fabien Accidini, a chiropractic student from Toulouse who has a part-time job delivering medicines by lorry, said he spotted the English teenager on Wednesday.

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Mr Accidini told La Depeche, as reported by the Mirror: "He was walking while the rain fell in heavy drops. The second time I passed him, I decided to offer to drop him off somewhere. He was quite tall and blond, and dressed in black jeans, a white sweater and a backpack. He also carried a skateboard under his arm and a flashlight for lighting. His attitude gave me confidence. He ended up getting into my van.

"During the first few minutes, he seemed a little shy. We tried to speak in French but I noticed that he had not mastered the language. I decided to communicate in English. ‘When I asked him his name, he pretended his name was Zach, and then we continued chatting. We talked for over three hours! Very quickly, he gave me his real identity – Alex Batty – before telling me his story.

"He said his mother kidnapped him when he was 12 years old. Since then, he had lived in Spain in a luxury house with around ten people. He arrived in France in around 2021. In the middle of last weekend, he decided to leave his mother to join his family in England. He had been walking in the mountain for more than four days!

"He lived