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Jay Slater: Search for missing teenager in Tenerife called off by police

Lina Portman7 days ago

0 2 minutes read

Legend, Jay Slater, pictured with his mother Debbie Duncan, was on his first holiday abroad without his parents

Author, Tom McArthur
Role, BBC News
June 30, 2024, 11:12 BST

Updated 5 minutes ago

The search for missing British teenager Jay Slater in Tenerife has been called off, police have said.

“The search operation is over. Yesterday was the last day of the search,” the Tenerife Civil Guard told the BBC.

The 19-year-old from Lancashire has been missing since June 17, after telling a friend he was lost in the mountains.

Police carried out a new search on Saturday with the help of dozens of rescuers near the village of Masca, in the Teno Rural National Park.

Since the teenager's disappearance nearly two weeks ago, Spanish authorities have deployed helicopter crews, specially trained search dogs and drones.

It was hoped the operation would be a “massive search”, but fewer than 12 members of the public had arrived at the meeting point shortly before it began, BBC journalists at the scene noted.

The search focused on the ravines and steep, rocky terrain surrounding the small village where Mr Slater was last seen.

But as of Sunday morning, no emergency vehicles or personnel were visible in Masca.

The apprentice mason, from Oswaldtwistle, was attending the NRG music festival on June 16, and his friends said they were in the tourist area of Playa de las Americas when he was seen getting into a car with two Brits he had met earlier in the evening.

The following morning, June 17, he was tagged in a photo posted on Snapchat at 07:30 BST at an Airbnb in Masca, which was allegedly rented by the two men.

Investigators have spoken to the couple and they are “in no way involved in the case.”

He was last heard from before 9:00 a.m. BST in Teno Rural Park, where he called a friend to say he had missed the bus and was trying to make the 10-hour journey home. accommodation in the south of the island.

His best friend, Brad Hargreaves, told ITV he received a video call from Mr Slater in which he appeared to slide off a designated path, with the call showing his feet on uneven ground.

Mr Hargreaves told ITV News last week: “I don't know how or what happened there but he left and called me halfway to their house saying I was staying here and would come back the next day.

“He called me as I was coming down the mountain and just told me he was walking home.

“At the time I didn't pay any attention to it, I just thought he was going to take a bus or a taxi home because that's what he said he was going to do.

“Next thing you know his phone breaks and it’s been 10 days now and nothing since. »

Speaking to the BBC earlier, Mr Slater's mother said: “He's just a nice, bubbly guy with hundreds of friends who enjoy being in his company,” she said.

“He's beautiful, he's beautiful. He's my baby.”

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