‘I don’t want you to go to jail,’ Alex Batty tells his mum as he speaks out after cops launch probe into disappearance

HOME again teenager Alex Batty last night told his mum: “I don’t want you to go to jail.”

Alex, 17, who returned to the UK after six years missing in Europe with mum Melanie, 43, and grandad David, 64, said he did not want them to hand themselves in.

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Melanie and David had rejected society to pursue a drifter lifestyle.

Alex initially told officers he had spent four days walking through the mountains before he was picked up by a delivery driver at 3am on December 13 as he walked along a road near the village of Camon, south of Toulouse. 

But he later admitted to The Sun that he had lied about his journey to try and protect his mum and grandad. 

Since returning to Oldham, Alex has been interviewed by detectives, who launched a child abduction probe.

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He said he disagreed with his mum’s decision to drag him around Europe but believes she thought she was acting in his best interests.

He said he was happy to cooperate with cops but said of his mum and grandad: “I don’t think they should get in touch with the police because I don’t want them to go to jail.”

Child abduction carries a maximum seven-year prison sentence.

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