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30th Jun 2024

Jay Slater search called off by Tenerife police

Ryan Price

Jay Slater

The British teenager has been missing since 17 June.

Police on the island of Tenerife have announced that they are calling off the search for Jay Slater.

The 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, disappeared earlier this month after attending a music festival with friends.

For almost two weeks now, the Guardia Civil have conducted an extensive search of the remote, mountainous area north-west of the island where Jay was last seen.

Jay Slater search called off by Tenerife police

Police believe he returned to a rented accommodation in the village of Masca with two British tourists he had befriended at NRG festival, which was taking place that weekend in the popular holiday destination of Costa Adeje.

The Guardia Civil called for volunteers to join a “massive search” in the Masca area yesterday, but, according to Jay’s dad Warren, only six people showed up to help.

Following Saturday’s unsuccessful search, local police have now declared that the search has ‘ended’, but state that they will be keeping the investigation open.

Tomorrow will mark two weeks since Jay disappeared.

Earlier this week, Brad Hargreaves, who attended the music festival with Jay and Lucy Mae Law, came forward with new information about the morning that Jay went missing.

Speaking to ITV’s This Morning, he described how he received a video call from Jay early on the morning of June 17.

“He was on the phone and he goes, ‘I’m not walking down all around that road’, and he’s gone over like a little… not a big drop but a tiny little drop going down there,” Brad explained. “He goes ‘I’ll ring you back, I’ll ring you back.’ I think someone else was ringing him.

“Thinking like me, he would have went back up and started walking around the path again, he wouldn’t have gone all that way down there.”

The reporter, Isla Traquair, then asked him: “And you said you could see his feet and he was actually sort of sliding down the hill, you could hear the rocks?”

Brad replied: “Yeah that’s how I knew he went off the road because, you know when you walk on gravel, or whatever it is, you can… you know what I mean, stones.”

Traquair then asked the young man whether or not he felt concerned for Jay at that time.

“Not at the time because we were both, like, laughing about it,” Brad replied. “He said: ‘Look where I am’. He didn’t seem concerned on the phone until we knew how far away he were.

“I said, ‘Put your location on.’ He said, ’15 minute drive, fourteen-hour walk.’ I don’t know if it’s accurate or not so I said to him: ‘It’s only a 15-minute drive, get a taxi’.”

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