Investigator Mark Williams-Thomas interviewed family, friends and key witnesses in the days after the 19-year-old from Lancashire disappeared on the Spanish island of Tenerife last June
A year ago today, Jay Slater went out to a nightclub while on holiday with friends in Tenerife. He was last seen alive in the early hours of the next morning before vanishing, and it took almost a month to find his body.
Investigator Mark Williams-Thomas has taken a deep dive into the case in a new podcast series, interviewing family, friends and key witnesses about the Lancashire teen’s disappearance on the Spanish island – here we take a look at all the things we have learned as he reveals the details of those conversations.
Jay had been going to the NRG music festival with friends at the Papagayo nightclub in the resort of Playa de las Americas on June 16 last year. We know he went to an AirBnB apartment in the early hours of the next day, which was the last place he was seen alive before his body was found on July 15 by a mountain rescue team from the Spanish Civil Guard near the village of Masca.
Who was the last person to see Jay alive?
Mark Williams-Thomas revealed he spoke to Ayub Qassim who had rented the AirBnB about the last time he spoke to Jay, on the morning he left.
Mr Qassim said: “He (Jay) said to me ‘Pal I’m off, this woman told me I can get a bus every 10 minutes’, I told him that he’s mad, there’s no bus that’s coming here every 10 minutes, chill out for a bit and I’ll drop you off later on.
“He said, ‘No, no I’ve got to go to Los Cristianos, I need to scram, I need to chip out’. There’s nothing more that I could do.
“I saw him walk off maybe down the steps. I maybe shut the door and said if you need me…”
But Mr Williams-Thomas also revealed that was not the last time Jay was seen alive.
Just moments later Jay spoke to a woman who looked after the Airbnb rental, where he had just spent the night.
The investigator went to speak to the woman and indicated there would have been a language barrier between the pair.
She told Mr Williams-Thomas that she had told Jay where he could catch a bus back to the south of Tenerife and then she saw him walk off up the hill on his own.
“She said 10am to him and showed him where the bus stop is but it is very obvious anyway and she said that she then saw him walk off up the hill,” said Mr Williams-Thomas.
“If he was walking back to Los Cristianos he would have walked off that [the other] way, but for some reason he walked off up the hill. She said she didn’t see him after that, he was alone, he wasn’t carrying anything and he definitely wasn’t with anyone else.
“She said at that stage, the two black men, she believed, where inside asleep, I couldn’t understand why she knew that for certain but she said they were inside and she didn’t see him again.”
Jay’s final movements
Ex-detective Mark Williams-Thomas said Jay Slater was “buzzing” and wanted to carry on partying even though his friends left, which led him to make the decision to travel far away from his hotel.
He said the key to knowing why Jay 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.
He added: “Jay was still buzzing at 6am from the alcohol and drugs but his friends wanted to go home, so when Qassim told Jay that he could go back to theirs and continue partying he jumped at the chance.”
The investigator added: “2.35am – Jay sent a cryptic text to a friend saying ‘they’ve got a marker on me’, the friend replied at 3am with the message ‘you need to go home lad you’re off your barnet’. Jay then replied ‘you think I’m going home you must be disabled’.”
“We know that at this stage Jay was very heavily under the influence of drink and drugs and it is highly likely that some paranoia was present because his friends were saying he was not making much sense and being argumentative which was very unlike Jay.
He added that his investigation at the Airbnb: “Strongly rules out third party involvement (in Jay’s death) from the time he was at the rental.”
Jay likely died instantly
The teenager’s body was found at a ravine near the village of Masca nearly a month after he went missing. An inquest which opened and adjourned last month heard he died from a head injury.
Home Office pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd said Jay may have died “in an instant” after falling into the ravine, stating the fall would have had an “immediate and devastating effect on Jay’s consciousness”.
He added that the teen had sustained “severe” injuries before concluding the official cause of death was a head injury, agreeing with an earlier consensus offered by Spanish pathologists.
Dr Shepherd said: “The injuries were so severe I have not doubt he would have been instantly unconscious from the moment of that blow to the head.
“Death could well have been instant the injury was so severe.
“Jay would undoubtedly be unconscious and unaware.
“It’s most likely death would have occurred instantly or extremely soon afterwards.”
Why did it take a month to find him?
The remote region of Masca near where Jay’s body was found is notoriously rugged and treacherous, locals said.
The tiny hamlet clings to the rocky outcrops of North Western Tenerife in the far-flung Parque Rural de Teno, with locals calling it the “lost village” as it didn’t even have a road connection until the 1990s.
It is one of the most remote parts of Tenerife, and in the past few years more rescues have been carried out here than anywhere else in the Canary Islands, according to the website of the Masca visitors centre.
Speaking at the time of his disappearance a worker at the visitor centre in Masca described the remote area saying: “There’s a lot of people that usually get lost here, there’s a lot of forest.
“We’ve already had a lot of news of tourists getting on trails they shouldn’t have and getting lost.
“I’ve seen a lot of helicopters flying around the rural park for years.”
Tenerife’s drug problem
Mark Williams-Thomas revealed that when he went to check for CCTV from inside the Papagayo nightclub in the resort of Playa de las Americas, where Jay and his pals had partied, he was surprised by the smell of drugs on the strip.
He revealed that he was told to come back later and then also enquired at another club opposite which didn’t have CCTV.
The investigator said: “I went to a club just across the road which is a club that we know Jay went to, and we know Jay was with the two black men, interestingly enough no CCTV inside, you have to question why.
“Less than 30 seconds after getting out of the vehicle I was approached by a number of men offering me drugs, offering me cannabis, cocaine straight away, actually it is rife along the street.
“I’ve never walked down a street where you can smell cannabis to the degree it is here, so prevalent, and there are police driving around, no one cares, no one cares at all.”
Jay’s friends absent from his inquest
Lucy Law was the first to raise the alarm about Jay being missing. They were friends before the holiday and both come from Lancashire. In the days after he went missing she got early search efforts off the ground and assisting the teen’s family when they arrived to help. She did not attend the inquest into his death last month, with her family saying she was out of the country and unaware it was taking place.
Bradley Hargreaves also travelled from Lancashire with Jay to Tenerife. He knew Jay’s last location after he was sent it by the teen. Bradley spoke regularly to the press during the search for Jay. He was also abroad when the inquest into Jay’s death took place.
Brandon Hodgson was the third Lancashire friend to jet to Tenerife alongside Jay, and was one of the last people with whom Jay spoke before going missing. Investigator Mark Williams-Thomas said Brandon, now 20, had received a text from the teen saying: “I’ve started walking.” Brandon is now “liasing with police” after Lancashire Police, but was also abroad when the inquest took place.
Ayub Qassim, a fellow Brit but not a friend from home, had invited Jay back to his rented AirBnB in the Tenerife mountain village of Masca the night before he went missing. The 31-year-old, a convicted drug dealer also known as “Johnny Vegas” had let him stay overnight. He did not attend the inquest into Jay’s death.
Steven “Rocky” Roccas was staying with Mr Qassim at the Masca AirBnB, but little more is known about the man beyond this. Met Police officers had tried to serve him a witness summons at his address in London, but found he was no longer residing there. Mr Roccas has not been found.
Jay’s mum still needs answers
At the inquest Jay’s mum Debbie Duncan pleaded with these people to come forward.
She told Preston Coroner’s Court: “I know you have tried to locate them but how can we ever get any understanding we know he died and he had an accident but from him leaving that holiday resort to going up to there we have read their statements and we want these people to be here sat in front of us, we want to ask them questions
“Our son went on holiday and didn’t come back so there are questions we need to ask… please.”