Tenerife police investigate reports of 'teenager watching Euro matches' on island

Spanish police are investigating reports of missing British teenager Jay Slater “watching Euro matches” near where he went missing in Tenerife.

Police reportedly spoke to several people who said they saw the 19-year-old watching soccer matches after his friends lost contact with him, the local mayor said.

Emilio José Navarro, mayor of the town of Santiago del Teide, said police had questioned a number of people who believed they had seen the British teenager, the Independent reports.

On Wednesday, local police released images showing the continued search for Mr Slater by land and air.

In an update, the Garda Civil said: “We are continuing the search for the young British man who went missing in Tenerife.

“Different civil guard units from the area participated, joined by agents with their dogs specialized in searching for people coming from Madrid. »

The footage shows a helicopter searching the mountainous area, with search teams on foot joined by sniffer dogs.

Meanwhile, police are examining grainy city CCTV footage that emerged on Monday which could be a new sighting of the missing teenager 10 hours after his phone was last tracked live.

“We know that the police are investigating (the CCTV footage). They have requested the security cameras from the city hall and are also working with the company that manages those cameras,” Navarro said.

The CCTV footage was taken in Santiago de Teide, near a church where Mr Slater's mother said on Saturday a man came forward to say he had seen someone matching her son's description sitting on a pew with two men.

The man believes he saw Mr Slater sitting on a pew near San Fernando Rey Church looking “a bit shabby” around the same time on Monday evening.

A source close to the family told MailOnline of the CCTV: “He looks like him and certainly has a male form but we just don't know. It was taken near the church where a witness said he saw him so we have to be hopeful.

Mr Slater's father Warren said his family were going through “absolute hell” as the search for his son entered its second week. Speaking to The Sun in Santiago de Teide, he broke down in tears as he pleaded for his son's safe return.

He told the newspaper: “I just want him found. I just want my son back, period. »

“Besides, it's been a week now, a week without anything. Someone, somewhere, must have discovered something. Someone.

“It's pure hell, unless you go through it you can't explain it.

“Please, please, please, if anyone knows anything, come and help us.”

The sighting is believed to have occurred at 6pm, 10 hours after his phone last rang about three and a half miles away in the rugged Teno Country Park, where search efforts have been concentrated.

Santiago de Teide is about 15 miles from the rave venue where Mr Slater was partying.

The 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, had attended the NRG music festival on the island with two friends before his disappearance and was last heard from on Monday last week.

He disappeared after trying to walk back to his accommodation after missing a bus.

The walk from Mr Slater's last known location, Teno Rural Park in the north of the island, to his accommodation would have taken around 11 hours.

His friend Lucy Law said Mr Slater told her in a frantic phone call at 8.30am last Monday that he was “lost in the mountains, he was unaware of his surroundings, he desperately needed to one drink and his phone was at 1%.

Search teams in Tenerife focused their efforts this weekend on small buildings close to where his phone last rang.

On Sunday, Canary Islands Guardia Civil officers could be seen surrounding two structures at the bottom of a ravine in the Teno Rural Park.

Efforts appeared to be focused on just one area after days of searching the village of Masca and the surrounding landscape.