Mark Williams-Thomas, who has worked on some of the world’s most high profile missing persons cases, has set the record straight on a key question surrounding Jay Slater’s inquest
A former British Police detective has set the record straight on why key witnesses didn’t attend Jay Slater’s inquest and slammed authorities because of it.
Jay is believed to have gone to an Airbnb apartment in the early hours, and then subsequently vanished and was reported missing on June 18. His body was found in a steep and inaccessible area by a mountain rescue team from the Spanish Civil Guard near the village of Masca on July 15.
Shocking new details and eyewitness testimony has emerged about the Jay Slater case – including his last conversation with a friend before he went missing on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The new details have been shared by investigator Mark Williams-Thomas in a two-part podcast.
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In a video posted on X yesterday Mark says: “One area I do want to clear up is this issue around the inquest, so there was a lot made about the witnesses not turning up. Let’s be really clear, the witness didn’t turn up because most of them, this isn’t all of them but a number of them, simply didn’t get warned.
“What happened is that the coroner, the police, they set up the inquest at the very last minute, there was no pre-warning to people… which they had the time to do, but they didn’t. They didn’t because they were worried about the amount of coverage the Jay SLater disappearance has had and the amount of anger and venom that’s been around – particularly from people on social media.
“So, therefore as a result of that they thought they would call it at the last minute well the consequences of that is that the witnesses were away. They weren’t around, they weren’t warned properly. So this isn’t a failing of witnesses not turning up, this is a failing of the authorities, the coroner, the police to fail to do it properly.”
In the podcast Mark says the key to knowing why Jay, 19, ended up in the north of the Spanish island of Tenerife, far away from his accommodation, was easy to understand. A post-mortem found Jay had consumed alcohol and drugs in the hours before he fell down a ravine. His disappearance on June 17 triggered a massive manhunt before his body was discovered on July 15 last year.
Mark-Williams added: “Jay was still buzzing at 6am from the alcohol and drugs but his friends wanted to go home, so when Qassim (a friend) told Jay that he could go back to theirs and continue partying he jumped at the chance.”
An inquest into Jay’s death was adjourned after his mum Debbie plead for more witnesses to come forward. She said: “We want these people to be sat in front of us, because our son went on holiday and didn’t come back, so there’s questions we need to ask.”