'We told cops of Alex Batty fears years ago' warn British owners of French B&B
A British couple who ran a French B&B say they raised the alarm after hosting Alex Batty and his mum six years ago but the police did nothing.
John and Margaret Johnson claim detectives bungled their chance of finding the missing teen, who re-appeared last month.
The couple said they became suspicious of a boy, mum and grandad who checked in to their camp site in the Pyrenees over their odd behaviour.
They gave officers the registration plate of a camper van but were told it was a “French problem”, they claim. By the next day, when they were going to contact French authorities, the boy and his family had vanished.
Alex Batty returned to Britain in December after he went missing aged 11 (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)The couple remembered the encounter when they saw recent coverage of Alex’s story. John said: “I recognised Alex straight away as the boy.
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“The three of them, a woman, a male and a child, arrived in a camper van. They didn’t book in advance so I didn’t have any email records.”
John said he noticed the family because all their camping equipment seemed to be new and they didn’t know how to put up a tent at the Lae de Haut site in Pau or work their laptop or the wi-fi. The man told him their camper van was a rental, but John thought it was too old.
John and Margaret Johnson’s campsite in the Pyrenees “Lae Haut” (Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)The young boy with “brushed-forward hair” didn’t use the games room or the pool. John said: “He didn’t seem to mix with other kids like a normal little boy. He just hung around the tent. At that point I started to become suspicious.”
When he quizzed the grandad, he got confusing answers to his questions, he claimed, saying: “He said his wife was Dutch and he was trying to sort out transport to Israel as she had a job there. I thought he was on the wrong side of France to be going to Israel.”
A forwarding address in Holland the family gave before leaving later turned out to be fake.
Alex vanished after going on holiday with his mum and granddad David (PA)John, now retired and back in the UK, believes police he rang in Nottinghamshire – where he used to live – missed their chance to act. He added: “Maybe it could all have been sorted there and then.”
Alex vanished in 2017 after going on holiday to Marbella, Spain, with his mum and grandad, Melanie and David Batty. Now 17, he was found last month walking along a road in the foothills of the French Pyrenees.
Alex fears his mum Melanie will be jailed over his disappearance (PA)He has since been reunited with his grandmother Susan Caruana, his legal guardian, in Oldham, Greater Manchester, and plans to go to college, get a job and organise a night out for his 18th birthday next month.
He told ITV ’s Good Morning Britain last week: “We stayed in a lot of caravans... a lot of houses, always up mountains hours away from any kind of village. One day I thought, OK I can’t take this any more.”
Greater Manchester Police is investigating his disappearance. Notts Police was approached for comment.
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