The parents of Jay Slater haven’t lost hope in the hunt for their missing son, but they fear the worst might have happened.
Despite Spanish police officially calling off their official search, the 19-year-old’s family has vowed to remain in Tenerife until they have answers. The apprentice bricklayer, from Lancashire, was partying at the three-day NRG festival with friends before he disappeared trying to make his way back to his accommodation on June 17.
Instead of heading home with his friends, he visited an Airbnb property, north of the island, with two older British men who had a rental car. Jay last took a Snapchat photo of him smoking outside the rental home steps before ringing his pal Lucy Mae Law.
The teen told her that he had missed the bus back and was instead attempting the gruelling 11-hour trek, with him having no idea where he was. Lucy alerted the police, who have since found no trace of the young man.
For the past fortnight, specialist mountain rescue teams have been using drones and helicopters to scour the ravines around Parque Rural de Teno outside the village of Masca, where his last registered phone location was before losing battery. On Friday, the Guardia Civil called on expert volunteers for one last push to find him, however 24-hours later they called off the search altogether. A representative declared on Sunday: “The search operation has now finished although the case remains open.”
Reason for ‘disappointing’ turnout
Saturday’s last-ditch attempt focused on the ravines and trails around the mountainous area of Masca, where the teenager was last known to have been. Warning volunteers in their call for help, Civil Guard police chief Angel Sanz Coronado said: “Following the disappearance on June 17 of the young 19-year-old British man in the area of Masca, belonging to the municipality of Buenavista del Norte, the Civil Guard is prepared to carry out a mass search.
“Given that it is a steep, rocky area, full of uneven terrain and with many ravines, tracks and trails, we request the collaboration of all those Volunteer Associations that can help in this planned search that is intended to be carried out in a directed and coordinated way.” The spokesman clarified that it was not asking the “unexperienced” general public to join the search, only experts in the type of terrain in the area as well as professional volunteers like firefighters and Civil Protection workers.
However as the on-foot search commenced on Saturday morning, hopes of hundreds out on the ground were crushed, as the operation comprised approximately just 30 police, firefighters, and Civil Protection officials. And only just half a dozen regular volunteers showed up, according to reports.
When pressed by members of the media as to the logistics of covering the expansive 30km search zone with just 30 rescuers and volunteers, the Civil Guard stated: “We have already spent days searching. The search we are going to do today is going to be around 30 people.”
Jay’s dad Warren Slater, who has been putting missing person posters up on the island, expressed his concern that the low numbers were down to TikTok trolls and online conspiracy theorists who have painted a negative picture of his son. The emotional 58-year-old told the Mail: “It’s a bit disappointing that there are no British apart from Paul [Arnott], but I suppose to them he’s just a British lad who’s come out here and got drunk.”
Lashing out at the online trolls and sleuths who have slated the family, Warren said: “I’m grateful to those who have come out here because you can see just how dangerous it is and what gets me is the trollers who are having a go at us for not searching. It’s not the local park, these are big mountains, the terrain is dangerous, put yourself in our position would you go out in these conditions?”
All a ‘PR stunt’
TikTok star and climber Paul Arnott, from Bedfordshire, revealed he flew out to Tenerife after seeing Jay’s family’s urgent calls, even putting a charity event on hold in the UK. He was the only Brit to show up to Saturday’s ‘mass search’ that tragically failed.
In a scathing TikTok video which has since been widely shared, the adventurer blasted the operation as a ‘massive PR thing’, claiming the effort was all for show. Venting to followers on his ‘downtherapids’ account, frustrated Paul claimed: “So, guys, I’ve literally been waiting for absolutely ages now. This is a massive PR thing, I’m telling you now.
“I’m gonna ask him in a second to take my name off the list. I’m just gonna go down there and do my thing. I’m gonna do that now, I think. Because there’s people everywhere. Literally people everywhere and nobody’s doing anything.” He added: “[addressing Spanish police] Hey, hey, guys, for the list, this thing, just cross out take my name off. Yeah, because I’m going here now. It’s too busy. I wanna go search. I’m gonna search over here cause it’s ridiculous. So, yeah, guys, I can’t deal with this. This is absolutely mad. I’ve been up here for ages.”
He continued: “Yeah, there’s people everywhere. I’m just putting it how it is. Everyone is still in their cars. It’s all a big thing. It’s all chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. I’m putting it out there now. I’m sick of it. I’m so stressed out. I tell you what, I’m coming down here, I’m gonna go get some food cause my morning’s already been wasted. And then I’m gonna crack on a search for Jay in the area where I think he is. I can’t deal with this, guys. I’ve been so quiet about this now. I’ve been so quiet about this. Not doing it anymore, people. I’m sick of this c**p.”
The Civil Guard has been approached for comment on Paul’s videos, which have been viewed more than half a million times on TikTok. Explaining they have covered all bases with the little information available, Cipriano Martin, head of the Civil Guard’s Greim mountain rescue unit, said on Saturday: “Masca’s been looked at, the Juan Lopez ravine, the Retamar ravine, Las Aneas ravine, Los Carrizales ravine, in all the areas we know he’s been in because his mobile phone coverage is undeniable and places him there.
“But we have a difficulty which is that once the phone goes off the antennas stop picking it up, so that while he’s walking, and we don’t know how long he was walking for, no phone mast is going to detect it, and as the technicians tell us, they look for mobiles and not people, so we’re at that point as well, that we have certain information and we have to go on that.”
Criticising the police search, Mr Arnott told MailOnline: “If they had searched everywhere they would have found him, but they haven’t and I’m convinced he is on that mountain. I’ve been along ridges and gullies they haven’t been down and now I intend to look at two other ravines.”
Ignored sunglasses ‘clue’
Paul, who has remained in Tenerife despite the official search coming to an end, has vowed to continue looking for Jay, and claims to be chasing up a few leads. Taking to TikTok on Monday, Paul announced that he had uncovered a potential new ‘clue’ in his own search for Jay, suggesting that a pair of sunglasses could be key in finding out answers.
Taking to his channel, Paul revealed: “Moving forward a lot of new things have come out due to interviews. There’s quite a few things I’m gonna chase up today as well. One is a three words GPS. The other, apart from that, is a pair of sunglasses that were found by a man called Chris, who I’ll be meeting up with later today.”
Chris Pennington, 43, originally from Chester but lives in Tenerife, came across the sunglasses in the area where Jay’s phone last pinged, suggesting someone had thrown them there, MailOnline reports. The former British Army reservist, who served in Iraq, handed them to the police.
“I don’t know if they are Jay’s but as a duty of care, I picked them up and told the Guardia Civil about them,” he told the paper. “‘They told me not to touch them if possible and wrap them in paper not plastic and I did and handed them in.”
He said they took his DNA for fingerprints and added: “I walked a bit further towards where they said his phone pinged but it was a challenge to get through, it was impossible.” Jay’s family are now said to be distraught that the official search is off. A family source told The Mirror: “The family want to be sure the police aren’t giving up on Jay. They are in constant contact with them about the case.”
‘Taken against his will’
Distraught mum Debbie Duncan revealed she worries “something bad” has happened as Jay tried to make his way home, and believes he may be being held “against his will.” Speaking to ITV News, she described the ‘absolute nightmare’ she is living through.
“I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. I want my baby back,” she said as she broke down in tears. “It’s a nightmare, an absolute living nightmare. He’d been saving up, looking so forward to this event, absolutely buzzing about it. [It was the] third day of the NRG Festival and this has happened.
“I was loving that he was going and saying ‘you’ll love it’. Now I just wish I hadn’t encouraged him to go. I wish I’d have said ‘don’t go to Tenerife’.” Her comments came after the mum received hoax calls and cruel threats on social media, with people with ‘northern accents’ claiming to have her son.
“I got a Snapchat about 10 minutes after I got off the plane saying ‘Kiss goodbye to your boy, you’re never going to see him again, he owes me a lot of money,’ which I passed on to police with the number it came from because I had my wits about me at the time and got my eldest son Zac to take a screen grab before it disappeared,” she explained about just one of the messages.
More recently, the family are being targeted with fake ‘ransom demands’. Detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who previously investigated the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and Nicola Bulley, revealed that he has advised Jay’s family to bring in a team of experts to continue their own private search on the island. He previously said he has two theories about what happened on that fateful Monday morning.
He suspected Jay had come to “natural harm”, but hasn’t ruled out third party involvement. The TV sleuth said: “A strong working hypothesis remains that Jay has come to natural harm in the terrain as he took the rugged course back down the hill from the point of his location drop, where I am confident now that he was at 8.50am last Monday morning.”
Mr Williams-Thomas added: “He has either come to harm by his own accident, up in the hills somewhere, but not directly by the rental. Or, there is a third party involvement. I cannot rule that out at the moment.” However in the eyes of the Spanish police, there is no evidence of criminality.
Talking about the status of Jay’s case, a judicial source, speaking on condition of anonymity as is normal in Spain, explained: “There is no evidence of criminality at this stage in this case. That’s not to say things won’t change because the case remains open and investigations are ongoing. But right now that’s the situation.”
Another said: “This missing persons’ case has been judicialised as is normal in Spain and it’s been lodged at Court of Instruction Number One in Icod de los Vinos. The Civil Guard don’t have to tell the judge about everything officers are doing but will be keeping her updated on case progress and of course update her on any significant developments.”
