THE mother of vanished teenager Alex Batty has vowed to friends: “I’ve got to keep running.”
Home again 17-year-old Alex was aged just 11 when mum Melanie, 43, and grandad David, 64, took him to Spain and did not return.
Alex Batty’s mum is thought to have fled to the village of Bugarach in southern France, which is a hotspot for conspiracy theoristsPeter Jordan – The Sun
The SunAlex Batty’s mum Melanie told a friend she ‘had to leave’ in a late-night dash after finding out her son was heading home to the UK[/caption]
Alex has been reunited with his gran Susan Caruana after fleeing the French mountainsLouis Wood
Greater Manchester Police launched an investigation into alleged child abduction after Alex returned home to the legal care of his gran Susan Caruana.
And Melanie has now broken cover to tell her former landlord: “I’m staying on the run.”
Fellow expat Tony Smith, who let his converted cowshed in the French Pyrenees to Melanie, told The Sun on Sunday he believes she is with her father David.
He said: “She’s definitely with him — without a doubt.
“She adored him and would never leave without him.”
Tony, 81, added: “She emailed me last week saying, ‘I’ve got to stay on the run.’
“She said she has got to keep running.
“She signed it off with lots of kisses.
“I haven’t heard from her since then as I think she’s scared of being traced.
Last Sunday, we revealed Melanie fled the £480-a-month four-bed home in Villefort in the middle of the night.
She is believed to be travelling with a close Italian male friend called Fabrizio, who she calls her disciple, in a white car.
Tony went on: “The car is a Peugeot 208 and belongs to him.
“Fabrizio would do anything for her.
“No one knows where he came from.
“One day he just appeared and she called him her disciple.
“He was always very passive and just followed her around.”
Local sources say Melanie may be living barely 25 miles from the bolthole she rented from Tony after Alex reappeared following six years on the run.
She is thought to have fled to the village of Bugarach, a hotspot for conspiracy theorists.
In 2012, groups of doomsday cult believers flooded the area, believing it was the only safe haven from an ancient prophecy that the world was about to end.
It is feared Melanie, from Oldham, is being shielded by members of a “secretive” commune that live in the mountain which looms over the village.
A source close to her said: “These people are highly secretive.
“They will do anything to protect their own.
“I understand she’s there.”
It’s believed she lived in Bugarach for while as Alex and David stayed elsewhere.
She was looking to create or join an “alternative spiritual community”.
A pal said: “She really thinks she’s on some kind of divine mission and is being led by a higher entity.
“She believes in UFOs but more that they are a spiritual essence rather than little green men.”
The 1,230m Bugarach mountain is a hotbed for hippy cults.
Its spooky shape is said to have inspired the Devil’s Tower in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
A villager said: “It’s not hard to hide someone there. This place is weird – it’s very remote.”
Her role in home clash
Alex’s mum led a 30-strong mob gathered outside the home of dad David after bailiffs tried to evict himyoutube
RUNAWAY mum Melanie Batty was caught on camera bamboozling a bailiff with her alternative belief system as he tried to evict her father.
Melanie led a 30-strong mob gathered outside the home of dad David — who had stopped paying his mortgage because he no longer believed in the world banking system.
The Huddersfield University law graduate is seen challenging the bailiff in a YouTube video filmed in 2013.
She insists: “I can assure you that what we’re doing is lawful and that what you’re about to do is illegal.”
The two bailiffs eventually walk off.
David was fighting to hold on to his house in Oldham, Greater Manchester.
A close friend said: “He didn’t like being charged bills.
“He lost his home in the end.”
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