Episode 1

At 11 years old, Alex Batty vanished on what was supposed to be a short family holiday with his mother and grandfather. An international missing persons investigation was launched, but years passed without a trace.

Then, six years later, a teenager appeared on the side of a road in the French Pyrenees and told a passing driver that he'd been kidnapped.

Alex, now aged 20, is ready to tell the full story about his abduction and his life on the run. For the first time, he retraces the route of his disappearance across Spain and France, uncovering not just how he was hidden but the belief system that kept him there. Each revelation builds a chilling picture of how easy it was for a child to disappear in plain sight.

Six years after going missing, isolated in the mountains and fearing another winter trapped in a life he didn’t choose, Alex made a decision that could have cost him everything. He slipped away in the dark, walking for hours along unlit mountain roads before flagging down a stranger - a split-second act of courage that would end his ordeal.

Back in the UK, as detectives reflect on the failed attempts to locate him and his grandmother recounts years of not knowing whether he was alive or dead, Alex confronts the most complicated truth of all: how he feels about his mother.