Friends of missing Tenerife teenager call on UK and Spanish police to help search | Spain

Friends of a missing British teenager in Tenerife have urged British and Spanish police to send reinforcements to aid the search, as they resorted to searching for evidence and questioning potential witnesses themselves.

Police on the island have been searching since Monday morning for Jay Slater, a 19-year-old apprentice mason from Lancashire, using drones and a helicopter.

But the area where he went missing, in the rural Teno nature reserve, is so large and rugged that friends said specialist search teams from the UK and the Spanish mainland had to be mobilized to help.

Slater's friend Lucy, with whom he was on holiday, was among those who urged British police to fly in to help with the search.

She reported Slater missing after receiving a call from him around 8:15 a.m. the morning of his disappearance, in which he told her he did not know where he was, that he was thirsty and that he only had 1% phone battery.

“I just think they need to get as much help as possible here,” she told the Guardian. “There are no helicopters here 1718902683. He's been missing for so long now, what are they really doing?

Lucy said she appreciated the support of local police “who know the area” but said the search operation needed to be much more intensive. “There’s no one here,” she said.

The first day she reported Jay missing, Lucy said she returned to his last known location. “I stayed here until it got dark, and I was told I had to leave,” she said. “That day, no one was there.”

In a bid to help find him, friends identified the house he had returned to with people he had met at a music festival the day before he went missing.

They said they traced the house from videos on social media and through speaking to locals in the village learned that the men Slater had befriended had already returned to the UK. United.

Slater's friends do not believe police spoke to the men before leaving the island to see if they had vital information about his last known movements.

They also searched the vast undergrowth, finding bags, clothes and other trash likely left by tourists, among the caves, rocks, cacti and banana trees that make up the landscape.

They collected and saved items such as cigarette butts, in case they could prove useful to the investigation.

On Thursday afternoon, police and search and rescue officers were in the area where Slater was last known to be present, but there was no sign of a large-scale search operation.

“Even if there were 30,000 people here, it’s like a needle in a haystack,” said another family friend. She said they spent 12 hours Wednesday hiking all the trails in the area surrounding Slater's last known location.

“This needs to be taken seriously,” Lucy added, saying she believed British police could have specialist resources that could help local forces.

She also said friends and family needed more support as they struggled to get information and communicate with local police.

Speaking to ITV news on Thursday morning, Slater's mother Debbie Duncan described her “living nightmare” as she waited for news of her “beautiful boy”.

She said: “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I just want my baby back. Please anyone who can help – look it up. It's a huge area up there.

“He's out there somewhere or someone knows where he is…

“I wish I hadn’t encouraged him to go.” I should have said, “Don’t go to Tenerife.”

“I just think he was probably still in a good mood, buzzing – he doesn't know where he is. He does not know the extent of the long journey he traveled to get up there.

A member of the emergency services at the national park said search teams had not given up hope and had stationed personnel on all major trails in the area. He said they remain optimistic that anyone can survive in current conditions.

A Lancashire Police spokesperson said: “Our role is to support the family. We went to see them and we will continue to support them. Obviously, our thoughts are with them at this time. We are also in contact with the Tenerife Consulate for any updates.