British teenager Jay Slater remains missing more than a week after vanishing on Spanish holiday island in a case which has devastated family and friends, baffled police and attracted hordes of amateur sleuths.
Meanwhile, two British men with whom the 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer spent his final hours before the disappearance remain a mystery.
Police hunting for Mr Slater today called in reinforcements from Madrid, with sniffer dogs joining the operation as the search area was expanded on the hunt’s ninth day.
Jay, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, had been partying with friends on the final day of the NRG music festival at Papagayo nightclub in the resort of Playa de las Americas, Tenerife, on Sunday last week.
He has not been seen or heard from since the following morning. Here, MailOnline looks at the key figures as the search for the missing Brit goes on.
The last confirmed sighting of Jay (pictured) was at around 8am last Monday by a woman who had told him the bus was due at 10am when he asked
The house with bus stop outside where 19 year old Jay Slater’s phone last pinged, which is his last known location
A search team near the last known location of Jay Slater, near to the village of Masca
Jay Slater’s family
Jay Slater’s mother Debbie Duncan and his brother Zak flew out to Tenerife the day after he went missing after learning the news.
They, as well as his father Warren, have remained their since and made emotional pleas to be reunited with the 19-year-old.
Warren, 58, and 24-year-old Zak visited on Sunday the mountain spot where Jay’s phone last pinged and hugged each other in emotional scenes.
The pair journeyed to a remote gorge above the village of Masca, 19 miles from the party resort of Playa de les Americas at an altitude of 3000ft.
Warren has since been critical of the Spanish police, accusing them of keeping the family in the dark over the search.
He said that while some officers had been ‘brilliant’, he was becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of communication from others.
He told reporters: ‘Nobody’s told us – the mountain police brilliant, but I don’t know how the other police [force] works.’
Jay Slater’s mother Debbie Duncan (pictured) flew out to Tenerife the day after he went missing after learning the news
Jay’s father Warren, 58, and his 24-year-old brother Zak visited the mountain spot on Sunday where Jay’s phone last pinged and hugged each other in emotional scenes
‘They could be doing everything but if they are doing [something], they’re not telling us what they’re doing, if you understand what I’m saying.’
Choking back tears as he investigated a new possible CCTV sighting of Jay, he later told Sky News: ‘I’m his dad, I’m supposed to be able to do something for him.’
Jay’s mother chose not to travel with them to the mountain area on Sunday – which she said left her subject to vile abuse from social media trolls.
She said at the weekend: ‘I don’t want to go up there in case I see something that I don’t want to. I’m just hoping everything will turn out for the better. If I went up there I would just break down.
‘The last few days have been awful. I just need him back. He is a handsome lad from Lancashire and he shouldn’t be missing in Tenerife.’
She has vowed to stay in Tenerife for ‘as long as it takes’ to find him.
Jay’s friends
The last person to speak to Jay before went missing was his friend Lucy Law, 18, who had been holidaying with him in Tenerife.
She says he called her at about 8am on Monday morning from a secluded mountain pass in Masca.
Lucy, who attended the NRG music festival with Jay, said he told of not being aware of his surroundings, desperately needing a drink but having no water.
The last person to speak to Jay before went missing was his friend Lucy Law, 18, who had been holidaying with him in Tenerife
A picture of missing teenager Jay Slater shows the 19-year-old in a nightclub in the early hours with his female friend Lucy Law just hours before he disappeared in Tenerife
She reported his disappearance later that morning.
Jay’s phone’s last signal was close to the Masca gorge beauty spot and the walk between his last known location and his accommodation would have taken about 11 hours on foot.
She too has since been critical of Spanish police, saying they were ‘not doing a good job’, especially after the Guardia Civilia declined an offer of help from Lancashire Police.
Lucy: said: ‘We are having to do this all by ourselves as Spanish police are not doing a good enough job.
‘They don’t even speak English. It’s been a very slow process here so we need the British police to come out and help them.’
She told of wanting to ‘bring him home to his family’, adding: ‘That is all we want, all that we need.’
Other friends of Jay’s have travelled out to Tenerife to help in the search efforts, attending Sunday’s mountain visit along with his father and brother.
Among them are Jay’s former girlfriend Jessica Ingham, who flew to the Spanish island from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire alongside three of his closest pals to help look for him and support his frantic mother.
Jay Slater’s devasted friends have flown out to Tenerife to help with the search for their best mate. Left to right: Aaliya Duxbury, Jessica Ingham, Saul Wilkin, James Currie
Debbie Duncan revealed how among those who had travelled to the Spanish holiday island was her son’s former girlfriend, Jessica Ingham (pictured right, with friend Aaliya Duxbury)
Jay’s ex-girlfriend, engineer Jessica Ingham sticking posters up around the airport
The group spent the weekend combing the harsh and unforgiving terrain of the Masca gorge where his mobile phone ‘pinged’ for the last time seven days ago after he had left a rave with two mystery men.
Engineer Jessica, 19, said: ‘What really gets me is all these online detectives who have got nothing better to do than spread malicious rumours and gossip, it’s not helping the situation.
‘People need to remember he is a missing person, and his mother is absolutely sick with worry and she doesn’t need to read all kinds of rubbish that are being written about him.
‘It’s really awful and these keyboard warriors need to take a step back and think about how Debbie is feeling and imagine if it was their son or brother that was missing, some people have been really hurtful.
‘He’s my ex boyfriend but we still keep in touch and he means a lot not just to me but all of us.’
Wellwishers have also donated more than £30,000 to a GoFundMe page to raise money to help rescue attempts.
Two mystery British men
Lucy and another friend named Brad left the nightclub after-party at 2am in the early hours of Monday but Jay told her he was staying on two British men he had met.
It is known that at around 4am just as the party was wrapping up police were called to Veronica’s Strip to deal with ‘an incident’ but there is no suggestion Jay was involved in what happened.
He is then known to have left with the two men at just before 5am and headed back to their rented Airbnb called Casa Abuele Tina, a journey along a twisting and turning mountain road.
Little is known about them but they were described by Lucy as ‘black and British’ and MailOnline has spoken to the owner of a bar next door to the property who said she heard people in the house at 6am.
This is the CCTV image the family of Jay Slater are hoping and praying is him – a week after he mysteriously vanished on Tenerife
Lucy (pictured) and another friend named Brad left the nightclub after-party at 2am in the early hours of Monday but Jay told her he was staying on two British men he had met
While here at 7.30am Jay sent two Snapchat pictures to Lucy and his mother showing the view from the house onto the nearby valley and one of him holding a cigarette on the doorstep of the house.
The Airbnb he was staying in before he vanished was rented out by the two men from Friday to Monday.
They stayed on an extra day after being questioned by police before leaving the country.
Locals have told MailOnline one of the men is known as ‘Johnny Vegas’ while Spanish police confirmed they had the names and passport details of both men.
Sources say they posted a Snapchat image of themselves back at Gatwick and reports have suggested they live in Bedfordshire.
Spanish police
Police hunting for missing Jay Slater today called in reinforcements from Madrid, with sniffer dogs joining the operation after officers increased the search area.
Officers from the Spanish city jetted in to Tenerife with hounds from the Civil Guard who specialise in searching for people ‘over large swathes of land’.
Scent dogs trained in ‘smaller areas’ had already been scouring the island for the apprentice bricklayer, 19, as efforts are ramped up on the ninth day of the agonising search to locate the missing teen.
The area teams have been tasked to comb was described today as ‘immense’ with the Civil Guard saying it had no plans yet to extend the land and air search to the sea.
It comes after officers yesterday confirmed new areas to the north of the Masca Gorge where Jay’s phone is last thought to have pinged from were now being searched.
A mutt from the Civil Guard takes part in the search for missing Jay in the Masca ravine last week
JUNE 22 — A team member with a search dog near to the village of Masca where the hunt to find the missing teen continues
Search and rescue are out in force last night with man power and drones surveying the scene
Search teams take a break for water as they comb through the rugged mountains in Tenerife
A spokesman for the force said: ‘The Civil Guard is continuing with the search operation for the young British man who went missing near the Masca area of the municipality of Buenavista del Norte in which different units are participating.
‘In addition today several dog trainers and their expert dogs who have transferred from Madrid have joined the search.
‘These dogs are specifically trained in searching for people over large swathes of land.’
He added: ‘The difference is that specialisation in large expanses of land.
‘The dogs that were already taking place in the operation were trained for searches in smaller areas.’
Amateur sleuths
Internet sleuths have flown out on one-way tickets to Tenerife to help find missing Jay Slater – echoing the case of Nicola Bulley.
TikTok influencers and adventurers – equipped with hiking boots and camcorders – filming themselves trekking through mountain scrubland on the island looking for the 19-year-old Briton who vanished nine days ago.
In short videos, they describe the hostile cacti-filled landscape, the altitude, and the steep cliffs around where Jay was last seen
A flurry of wild conspiracy theories about what has happened to the teenager, who has a criminal past, is currently swirling around online.
They include false and unfounded claims that he has faked his disappearance to pocket cash from a GoFundMe page, that he has been kidnapped after a drugs deal went wrong with criminal enforcers holding him to pay back the debt, and that he may have actually pocketed the money himself and is lying low until the heat dies down.
British TikToker Andrew Knight is a travel and lifestyle vlogger who has arrived in Tenerife with a drone to aid the search
He and other British volunteers have flown to the island to try and help find Jay – to mixed reaction from local emergency services
The situation has been linked to when Ms Bulley disappeared last January after amateur detectives besieged the small Lancashire village of St Michael’s on Wyre where she was walking her dog.
At least five Britons are understood to have left home in the UK to fly out to Tenerife and hike through the Macizo de Teno mountains near the village of Masca, where Jay’s mobile phone was last pinged.
One is Paul Arnott, 29, who flew out from Fort William three days ago and has been updating his TikTok page called ‘DOWNTHERAPIDS’ where he has 193,000 followers.
On one of his videos uploaded this morning, he claimed he is being welcomed by local police, fire crews and search teams.
Mr Arnott – who is normally based in Bedfordshire – flew out from the Scottish Highlands at a cost of £400 after scaling Britain’s tallest peak, Ben Nevis, to clear litter which was strewn around one of the mountain shelters.
Explaining why he came to Tenerife, he told Sky News: ‘I heard on the internet, but they needed help.
‘I was following the story and I wasn’t planning to come out, but as soon as I heard they needed help, that’s when I came out.’
Helping Paul is another British TikTokker called Andrew Knight, a travel and lifestyle vlogger who goes by the name @theknightsrider1 and who has come armed with a drone to help locate Jay.
Paul Arnott (pictured), 29, who flew out from Fort William three days ago and has been updating his TikTok page called ‘DOWNTHERAPIDS’ where he has 193,000 followers
On one of his videos (pictured) uploaded this morning, he claimed he is being welcomed by local police, fire crews and search teams
He said he has been liaising with Jay’s family and in video clips encourages others to join the search but to not come alone.
Mr Knight, who now lives in Tenerife, has been searching a mountainside close to the spot where Jay last used his phone.
He told his 57,300 followers: ‘I want to show you just how treacherous and steep this landscape is. A lot of the pictures online don’t really do it justice…just how treacherous and barren and remote this landscape is.’
Mark Williams Thomas
The detective-turned-TV investigator who probed the disappearance of Nicola Bulley has also arrived in Tenerife to help the family of missing British teenager Jay Slater.#
Mark Williams-Thomas, who also exposed Jimmy Savile’s evil crimes, was spotted on the Spanish island today.
The TV sleuth is believed to have landed in Tenerife on Monday night – 24 hours after he ‘reached out’ to Jay’s mother Debbie Duncan to ‘get her answers as to what happened to him’.
Mr Williams-Thomas previously said it would take him three days to get answers for the family – while he also vowed to ‘track down’ the two men that Jay left a rave with and went back to their Airbnb before going missing.
Before landing in Tenerife, he told Manchester Evening News: ‘Having feet on the ground and looking at the scenario and circumstances, I know I will get to the bottom of this in three days.
Mark Williams-Thomas (pictured), who probed Nicola Bulley’s disappearance and exposed Jimmy Savile ‘s evil crimes, was today spotted on the Spanish island where the 19-year-old was last seen on June 17
‘I would quickly be able to establish whether or not there are suspicious circumstances – but I’d need total access to everything and to speak to all the witnesses involved.’
He said it was crucial for the family to work with him to get answers and that he would need to speak to ‘every witness involved’.
Mr Williams-Thomas was previously lead investigator on the ITV Exposure documentary, The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, which revealed how the late BBC presenter systematically and disturbingly preyed upon young and vulnerable girls.
He also offered help earlier this year when mother-of-two Ms Bulley, 45, went missing while walking her dog in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire, before her body was later discovered and an inquest ruled she had accidentally drowned.
