Jay Slater: British teen missing in Tenerife had cut his leg and didn’t know where he was, friend says

Published

1 year ago

June 19, 2024

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A British teenager who is missing in Tenerife had “cut his leg on a cactus” and did not know where he was, a friend has told Sky News.

Lucy Law said 19-year-old Jay Slater is “not a stupid boy” and would have flagged down any passing car or spoken to passers by.

Mr Slater, from Lancashire, has been missing on the Spanish island since Monday morning.

His mother, a team of mountain rescuers, and the local civil guard are searching for him after he disappeared while holidaying with friends.

Ms Law said he rang her to say he “didn’t know where he was”, that he “needed a drink” and had “cut his leg on a cactus”.

Despite his mobile phone battery being down to 1% he managed to send her a photo of his location.

When she told him to return to where he had walked from, he said he did not know where that was, Ms Law said.

He was without food and water, she added, and had been in a T-shirt and shorts. “It’s very warm in the day and very cold at night,” she told the UK Tonight programme on Sky News.

“So in the day he’s going to be really warm without a drink, and then at night he’s going to be very cold without any suitable clothing.”

Ms Law and others have printed off posters in both Spanish and English and have plastered them “everywhere”, she said.

Soon after Mr Slater went missing, an American woman offered to drive Ms Law up into the mountains.

There was “literally no sign of him anywhere”, she said. “We drove around all day.”

Mr Slater had posted a picture online of some mountains next to a house he had been to.

Ms Law drove around looking for a lamp and some flowers seen in that picture.

“We managed to find the house,” she said. “I knocked on the door and there were two people there.”

They told Ms Law that Mr Slater had gone out for a cigarette before going back in and saying he wanted to go home.

“They told me he’d spoken to the next door neighbours and they’d told him there was a bus every 10 minutes back down to Los Cristianos.

“The bus stop was right next to the house. So obviously if he’d gone to get the bus he wouldn’t have got lost because it [the stop] was visible from the front door.”

The trip back down from the mountains is an hour’s drive. “Everything looks the same – it’s just a road and hills,” Ms Law said.

“I can’t understand why he would come out of the house and then decide he was going to walk. I think he maybe set off walking with battery and had not realised how far the walk actually is.”

There are “so many questions that are unanswered”, Mr Slater’s friend said.

‘He’s not a stupid boy’

“The thing I find the most weird about this is the fact that there’s nobody that’s seen him.

“And he’s not a stupid boy – he’s got some nous about him.

“I’ve seen so many people up here and I’ve asked every single one if they’ve seen him – this is what I find weird.

“If he’d seen somebody, or a car, he would have flagged down the car – he would have said he needed a phone to contact someone.”

She added: “He would never have his family worrying like this – he would never have us worrying like this.

“If he saw someone, the first thing he would do is say ‘I need to ring my mum’ – I know that for a fact. He would never ever have his mum worrying like this.

“It’s just awful – I’ve never in my life been so worried.

“I’ve literally not slept at all since.”

The Spanish Civil Guard told UK media they are “doing everything possible” to find Mr Slater.

“A specialist mountain rescue and intervention group called the Greim have been mobilised.

“A police helicopter is also out and focusing on the area around the village of Masca.

“Other emergency services including firefighters have also been mobilised.”

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

Published

13 hours ago

July 14, 2025

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.

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Meredith Kercher’s killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

Published

1 day ago

July 13, 2025

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Meredith Kercher's killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.

Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.

He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.

Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.

Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.

Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.

The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.

Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.

The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.

Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.

Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.

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IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

Published

1 day ago

July 13, 2025

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IDF blames 'technical error' after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.

Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.

Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.

When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.

In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.

Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.

The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.

The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.

But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.

Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.