Everything we know about missing British teenager Jay Slater who vanished on holiday in Tenerife

20 June 2024, 05:55 | Updated: 21 June 2024, 08:52

British teenager Jay Slater was last heard from on Monday morning while on holiday on the island of Tenerife.

Jay Slater, 19, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, had travelled to the Canary Islands for a weekend music festival with two friends when he disappeared late on Sunday evening.

The teenager was attending the 'New Rave Generation' (NRG) festival, but chose to stay behind with a group of strangers he had met instead of returning to where he was staying with friends.

His last known movements

One of his friends said he had gone back to someone's house, someone he had met on holiday.

She told the Manchester Evening News: “One of the people he has met has hired a car out of here, so he's driven them back to his apartment and Jay has gone there not realising how far away it is.

"He's ended up out in the middle of nowhere. Jay was obviously thinking he would be able to get home from there.”

Having missed the last bus home, he would have embarked on an 11-hour walk, according to reports.

It was the first time the teenager had been on holiday without his family.

The 19-year-old has not been seen or heard from since Monday at 8:15am when he called his friend to tell her he was lost, his phone was about to die and that he needed water.

What was his last known location?

Jay told a friend he planned to walk back to his accommodation after missing a bus on Monday morning. It would have been a journey expected to take around 11 hours on foot.

His last location shows as the Rural de Teno park - a mountainous area popular with hikers in the north of the island.

He was said to be wearing a white t-shirt, shorts, trainers and a black bag at the time he disappeared.

Where have authorities been searching?

Authorities had been searching the mountainous area of north-west Tenerife for the teenager before focus shifted to tourist hotspots Los Cristianos and Playa de Las Americas in the south.

It came after an alleged sighting of him getting out of a taxi.

But it later emerged that the report was incorrect, with police forced to move attention back to the original site.

What have his friends and family said?

Jay’s mother, Debbie Duncan, flew out to Tenerife to help with the search on Tuesday morning.

She said that she feared her son, an apprentice bricklayer, had “been taken against his will”.

“It’s just traumatic and it doesn’t feel real. It’s just awful, it’s horrendous,” she said.

“I think he’s been taken against his will with what’s been said, but it’s in the hands of the police.”

The 19-year-old’s friend Lucy said she had spoken to the people Jay was staying with on Sunday night who said the teen left their apartment around 8 am on Monday.

"I've never been so worried in my life. I was there all yesterday, a lovely lady messaged me on Facebook and said she had hired a car and would drive me up there", Lucy added.

"We were there all of yesterday, we were driving around looking around everywhere, looking in all the nooks and crannies."