Jay Slater: Photographs show Tenerife property where missing British teenager was last seen
Photographs show the Tenerife property where British teenager Jay Slater is believed to have been last seen before he went missing on Monday.
A Snapchat video shared by the 19-year-old on Sunday night appears to show the property he visited in the northwestern mountain village of Masca after attending the NRG music festival.
Mr Slater, from Oswaldtwistle near Blackburn in Lancashire, was holidaying with friends on the island before he went missing.
The property where Jay Slater is believed to have been last seen
His friend Lucy Law told Wednesday’s UK Tonight programme on Sky News that she spoke to Mr Slater on the phone at about 8.15am local time on Monday.
During the short phone call, he told her he had missed a bus trying to get back to his holiday accommodation so was attempting to walk instead – a journey that would take 11 hours.
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Missing British teen’s friend speaks to Sky News
She said he told her he had “cut his leg on a cactus“, didn’t know where he was and his mobile phone battery was down to 1%.
Ms Law also said Mr Slater told her he “needed a drink”.
He was able to send her his last live location which showed as the Rural de Teno Park – a mountainous area popular with hikers – before his phone cut out.
Ms Law said Mr Slater, an apprentice bricklayer, is “not a stupid boy” and would have flagged down any passing car or spoken to a passerby.
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.”
Ms Law added that they “managed to find the house” where Mr Slater was last seen.
She continued: “I knocked on the door and there were two people there.”
The property where Jay Slater is believed to have been last seen
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.”
Jay Slater’s phone’s last live location was Rural de Teno Park. The search has also focused on Los Cristianos
The teenager was wearing a T-shirt and shorts and was without food and water, she added.
“It’s very warm in the day and very cold at night,” Ms Law said.
“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.”
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Former Coronation Street star prays for his safe return
Pic: Lucy Law
A rescue team searches the Masca ravine. Pic: Reuters
Earlier, she told the Manchester Evening News someone Mr Slater had met on the night out had driven him back to their apartment in a hire car without him realising how far away it was.
“He’s ended up out in the middle of nowhere. Jay was obviously thinking he would be able to get home from there,” she told the newspaper.
‘A living nightmare’
Mr Slater’s mother Debbie Duncan, who flew to the island and has joined mountain rescuers and the local civil guard in the search for her son, has called his disappearance “an absolute living nightmare”.
Search teams refocused their efforts on Thursday in the north of Tenerife, where Rural de Teno Park is located, after discounting a potential lead in the south of the island, the BBC reported.
Meanwhile, a Tenerife-based journalist said today is a “key day” in the search for Mr Slater.
Clio O’Flynn told Sky News: “If he’s taken shelter, the hope is he’s waiting for help to come along,”
She added: “The problem will be ‘does he have a phone signal? Will people be able to locate him? Can he hear their cries?'”
Police officers search the Masca ravine. Pic: Reuters
Ms O’Flynn said the search had been “very intense” with teams using all the resources at their disposal, including “mountain specialists, search dogs, drones and helicopters” and are “taking suggestions from his family, so it’s very coordinated”.
The area where he is believed to have gone missing is a “dry, arid, part of the island”, and, given its volcanic origins, has “ravines and gullies”, Ms O’Flynn said.
She warned there are “no lakes, rivers or streams, so it would be quite hard for him to access fresh water”.
Temperatures have been about 26C (79F), she said, but warned that “if you’re lost, 25C is very hot”.
A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has been reported missing in Spain and are in contact with the local authorities.”
The Spanish Civil Guard told UK media they are “doing everything possible” to find Mr Slater.
UK
Jay Slater: Spanish authorities remain silent on missing teen while online conspiracies reach fever pitch
In a rugged, remote corner of Tenerife, the search for Jay Slater continued into yet another day.
What was a sprawling operation last week now feels more focused, with a cluster of officers from the Civil Guard telling me they were looking at a particular ravine with a nearby water source.
Jay Slater has been missing since 17 June
Starting at 8am, the officers flanked by specialist sniffer dogs from Madrid, wandered down a path leading to a vineyard.
Gesturing to the other side of the uneven terrain, one explained how they needed special equipment to access an area that is difficult to traverse on foot.
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Jay Slater: Specialist search dogs hunt for missing teen
Officers were flanked by specialist sniffer dogs from Madrid
Civil Guard officers said they were looking at a particular ravine with a nearby water source
It’s not just the landscape the emergency services are battling, it’s the weather too.
The changeable conditions we’ve seen in the Rural de Teno national park over the past week have included not just the high temperatures you’d expect in Tenerife, but also cloud cover, high winds and rain.
On Wednesday, as that wind fell and the rain picked up, a group of vehicles drove down into another dip in the mountains.
Drones have been deployed in the search for Mr Slater
That group included not just the Civil Guard, but teams from the Canarian government and local police.
Watched closely by the Civil Guard, the local teams deployed three drones to survey the scene for about 45 minutes.
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Helicopter search for Jay Slater
That multi-agency effort is one of the defining features of this search.
Another is the reluctance of those agencies to comment, despite the series of questions shrouding this case – fanned by online conspiracies that have reached a fever pitch in recent days.
Since Mr Slater’s disappearance, the Spanish authorities are yet to hold a news conference.
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Although teams at the scene refused to confirm whether the drones were being used in connection with a specific lead, the Civil Guard did provide a comment later that day, describing the work as “repeated hunts through ravines, roads, and trails of rugged terrain”.
As another day of this case draws to a close, Mr Slater’s loved ones will be hoping that repeated work eventually provides them with some kind of answer to where he is.
Mr Slater’s mother, Debbie Duncan, called on the public to pray for her son.
“I have every faith in them down on the ground and the amazing searches they are carrying out along with more amazing guys up there,” she said.
“As a family we are in a living nightmare. We have no further updates other than Jay is still missing and we are just ignoring the social media side of things.”
UK
‘It’s terrifying’, cancer patient says, as junior doctors walk out again during heatwave and cyber attack fallout
A cancer patient has told Sky News it’s “terrifying” for her health that junior doctors are striking again from Thursday.
The NHS is expecting “major disruption” in the coming days as medics in England walk out over pay amid a yellow health alert heatwave and ongoing disruption to some services because of a ransomware cyber attack earlier this month.
Major hospitals Guys’ and St Thomas’ and King’s in London are still running at reduced capacity after the incident.
Donia Youssef and her children
Cancer survivor Donia Youssef has annual colonoscopies but her last was cancelled because of previous industrial action by junior doctors.
Donia, from Grays in Essex, said: “It’s a worry as a mum with two young children and I was on the list. It got cancelled. First time because of the strikes. And after that I didn’t hear from them. So I kept pushing. Nothing. It was just more delays. I was just kept waiting.
“[They said]: ‘There’s a backlog. We’ll get back to you. There’s a backlog, they’re getting through. We’ll let you know if there’s any cancellations.'”
“It’s like months later. Nothing. So eventually, because the symptoms are getting worse, I decided to pay.”
Donia was so scared of her health worsening she paid for private treatment, a cost she could barely afford. And now, as a cancer survivor, every time there’s a fresh round of strikes she is filled with dread.
“I get scared. I can’t get [treatment] on the private and a lot of it’s really expensive. So, yeah, it’s terrifying. So you’re constantly aware,” she said.
Donia Youssef
Donia added: “I try and not watch the news because it just scares me. But then when I do see it, I just get fearful, for myself and obviously others as well. It’s a scary time, and we shouldn’t be in this position. That’s what scares me.”
The British Medical Association (BMA), which has said that junior doctors’ pay has been cut by more than a quarter since 2008, has said some senior junior doctors would be given permission to work at the hospitals during the walkouts to “prevent dangerous delays to cancer care“.
The industrial action, which begins at 7am on Thursday and ends at 7am on 2 July, is the 11th walkout by junior doctors in the bitter dispute over pay.
Guy’s Hospital. File pic: AP
Asked about the impact of the cyber attack and the weather, BMA chairman of council Professor Philip Banfield said more experienced doctors will cover for their colleagues.
Dr Banfield said: “When the junior doctors go on strike, it doesn’t empty the hospital out of doctors. You’ve got our specialty and specialist (SAS) colleagues, consultants, so it is a more senior workforce in place, those gaps are not quite what you would expect.”
NHS England said that it expects the strike to cause “widespread disruption to routine care and difficulties with discharging patients”, despite extensive preparations.
Junior doctors make up half of the medical workforce and their last walkout in February led to 91,048 appointments, procedures and operations being cancelled.
Donia Youssef was so scared of her health worsening she paid for private treatment
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England’s national medical director, said: “This new round of strike action will again hit the NHS very hard, with almost all routine care likely to be affected, and services put under significant pressure.
“The warmer weather can lead to additional pressure on services at a time when demand for services is already high.
“As ever, we are working to ensure urgent and emergency care is prioritised for patients, but there is no doubt that it becomes harder each time to bring routine services back on track following strikes, and the cumulative effect for patients, staff and the NHS as a whole is enormous.”
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Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “While we fully understand the genuine grievances junior doctors have over their pay, conditions and training, NHS leaders will still be frustrated that they will yet again be taking to the picket lines.
“Holding strikes in the middle of an election campaign when no political party is in a position to bring the dispute to a close is a bitter pill to swallow for staff who have to plug the gaps and patients who will have their appointments cancelled or delayed.”
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About 1.5 million appointments have been postponed since the current wave of industrial action began in the NHS in England in December 2022, which has included walkouts by junior doctors, consultants, paramedics, physiotherapists and other staff groups.
It is estimated that strikes have cost the NHS an estimated £3bn.
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