'I was kidnapped by my mum before escaping - this is our relationship now'
A new BBC documentary follows Alex Batty as he tells his story in full for the first time, including opening up about his six-year disappearance.
Alex Batty has provided an update on his relationship with his mother, ahead of a new documentary chronicling his abduction.
In 2023, Alex, then 17 years old, was discovered in the French Pyrenees after spending six years missing.
He had been on the run with his mother and grandfather, after they disappeared while on holiday in Spain, when he was just 11 years old.
He had been due to return home after one week, but was last spotted at the Port of Malaga on October 8, 2017.
Years elapsed without any trace of Alex, before he was encountered by a delivery driver in December 2023, telling him, "I've been kidnapped", reports the Mirror.
He had fled with minimal cash, no mobile phone and his skateboard. Alex revealed he had been sleeping during the day and walking through the night to avoid detection.
Alex has since returned to living with his grandmother Susan in Oldham, and leads a vastly different life, having completed his GCSEs, college, and becoming a father himself.
He's now sharing his story in a BBC documentary, opening up about his disappearance and how he rebuilt his life after he returned home.
The programme will see Alex retrace his years in isolation, including the area where he slept in a tent, sometimes just eating one meal a day, while his mum and grandad stayed in caravans.
He also uncovers several missed opportunities that could have seen him rescued, and speaks to people that he had met over the six years of his abduction.
Talking about filming the documentary on BBC Breakfast on Wednesday, Alex recalled the "incredible" experience.
He said: "It was nice to go back to France and Spain where I filmed and nice to talk about everything that happened in a lot more detail."
He went on: "When I went there to begin with, I was stuck there, that's where I lived. But now that I'm back in England, me being able to go there, it was from a new perspective, it wasn't a case of, I'm here and I'm stuck here, I was able to look at it from a completely different point of view.
"It brought back a lot of memories that I'd forgotten about and made me appreciate being there because I wasn't stuck there."
When asked why he wanted to go back, he added: "I have a very negative way of looking at it of course, but I don't like that. I want to be able to look back on it and enjoy... that's my life and what I went through.
"I don't want to look back on a big chapter of six years and think, that was horrible. I wanted to go back to try and find everything good that happened there so I can look back on it, tell people about it and basically have a smile on my face."
He added: "I've been through it and lived it, so for me it's not extraordinary. I can understand from other people's perspectives why it's quite strange, because obviously it's not a normal way of life.
"I didn't go to school or do my GCSEs, I didn't go through what everyone else did, so I can understand why it's quite peculiar for other people, but I don't understand how people are amazed by it."
Alex also opened up on the "complicated" relationship he has with his mum.
He told hosts Jon Kay and Sally Nugent : "It's non-existent, I wouldn't really like to speak to her.
"I love her in my own way of course, it's my mum at the end of the day. But I don't know, when I was away for the last maybe year or two years, I didn't have a relationship with her anyway."
He went on to pay tribute to his grandmother, and the importance she holds in his life.
"We're always talking, always on the phone with each other," he said. "She's the reason everything went so smooth, I lived in England when I was a child but England has changed and I've changed.
"She's there every step of the way, giving my pointers, telling me how things are now. She got me into college, she's there, everywhere. She's always there."
Alex's mum Melanie and grandad David Batty have never been charged in relation to Alex's abduction, and the police investigation has been closed.
BBC Breakfast airs from 6am on BBC One and iPlayer. Kidnapped by My Mum is available to watch on BBC iPlayer
