The family he had been staying with in a remote farmhouse in the French Pyrenees said Alex wanted to return to the UK to get documents so that he could study computer science at school, MailOnline reported. They said Alex had been living on-and-off in their remote mountain farmhouse since autumn 2021, where his grandfather, David Batty, worked as a handyman in exchange for room and board for he and Alex. In a statement obtained by MailOnline, they said: “As far as we know, she (Ms Batty) was looking for a place to live in a community. “When we learned that he did not have an ID, we offered to drive him to the British Consulate. He told us he would find a way to return to the UK on his own to get new [identity] papers and go back to school.

Source: The Times December 17, 2023 18:07 UTC