Jay Slater search: His journey, outstanding questions and one final push to find missing teenager
In a corner of Tenerife, a winding, narrow road takes you towards a small village called Masca. At points on the route, the view of the sea below and the mountains above is breathtaking.
This place, with its handful of houses and cafes, nestled among ravines and rockfaces, is about a 40-minute drive from the parts of the island most British tourists know, but it might as well be a world away.
There isn’t the bustle of the resort towns in the south, with their clubs and bars. Instead, there are vast expanses of land that are arid and difficult to traverse on foot.
In the 13 days since the disappearance of Jay Slater, a 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer from Lancashire, the hikers and tourists who come to Masca have been joined by two more groups of people.
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Appeal for volunteers in Jay Slater search
The first are the emergency services, including the civil guard, volunteer firefighters and mountain rescue teams carrying out the so-far unsuccessful search for Jay. The second group are journalists like me, trying to understand a case shrouded in speculation and questions.
Jay’s journey
Those questions begin with Jay’s journey which started at Papayago, the nightclub where he was last pictured enjoying the end of the New Rave Generation (NRG) festival late on 16 June.
The club is in Playa De Las Americas, not too far from Los Cristianos where he was staying. Full of British revellers and near the beach, the strip is an area Jay would have been growing familiar with, having been at the festival for two days.
But on the event’s third and final night, instead of going back to the accommodation he was sharing with friends, Jay jumped in a car with two men, travelling to a small Airbnb in Masca.
This is where the information about his movements and whereabouts begins to thin, aside from the testimony of one eyewitness we met on our first full day in Tenerife.
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Ofelia Medina Hernandez runs a cafe above the Airbnb and says she saw Jay at about 8am on 17 June.
“He asked twice what time the bus came,” she told us. “He came back and he asked me again, and I told him again, at 10 o’clock.
“Later I got in my car, and I saw him, he was walking quickly, but I didn’t see him again after that,” she added.
Despite the door to the Airbnb being just yards from a bus stop which would have taken him back down south, Medina Hernandez described Jay walking in the wrong direction.
Another key component of the timeline is a conversation Jay had with a friend on the phone at around 8.30am that day. He told them he was walking back after missing a bus – a journey that would take 11 hours on foot.
He also said he was lost, in need of water, and only had 1% charge on his phone.
His phone is believed to have been last located near an observatory around an 18-minute walk away, which is where the efforts of the emergency services were focused in the first week.
The search
That visible flurry of activity included emergency services using a helicopter, drones and sniffer dogs.
However, as the days went on, that sprawling search became a more tightly focused one, with smaller groups of officers looking at pockets of land, like ravines and caves.
Pic: Adele-Momoko Fraser
Despite allowing us to film them at a distance, the teams, led by the civil guard, have refused to give much guidance on the ground, instead choosing to release updates and footage via WhatsApp.
With no news conference or formal interviews on offer, they’ve largely kept journalists in the dark.
‘I just want him back’
One group who are hoping for information and updates more than anyone else are Jay’s loved ones.
A small group of his friends and family have stayed in Tenerife, clearly struggling to come to terms with the void left by his absence and the prospect he might not return.
Pic: Adele-Momoko Fraser
On the first Saturday after his disappearance, we met his dad Warren and brother Zak for the first time and their anguish was clear.
Speaking to us near Masca, after trying to retrace Jay’s steps, Warren said he was “just hoping that somebody has helped him off this mountain”.
“That’s all I want, that somebody has helped him get off this mountain. I just want him back and that’s it. He’s, my son.”
His voice then cracked and he walked away from the camera and repeated: “I just want him back and that’s it.”
Despite his visible pain, Warren has also to push this search forward in his own way. Two days later in the town of Santiago Del Teide, we meet him again.
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Pic: Adele-Momoko Fraser
That afternoon he was tearful again – but determined, handing out flyers with a small group of friends.
Their reason for choosing the town, which is 7km away from Masca, was because of a grainy CCTV image that suggested Jay was last seen in the town’s square.
Online speculation
The family hinging so much hope on that information was an insight into how this case isn’t just about what’s happening on the ground, but also the narrative online.
A Facebook group called Jay Slater Missing – Only Official Group reached more than 500,000 members in less than a week and was inundated with speculation around the case, before comments in the group were restricted.
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Police share new CCTV image
The noise on social media, coupled with the situation, have added to his family’s distress, something his mother Debbie Duncan who is also in Tenerife, alluded to in a statement.
“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.”
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It’s clear though that social media has not only hurt the family, they also feel it’s helped them too, a point Debbie made when specifically thanking Paul Arnott.
A hiker from Bedfordshire, he has travelled from Fort William in Scotland to Spain and promised to stay however long it takes to find the teenager.
Never too far from the police search, Paul has been scrambling down ridges and climbing hills on his own while regularly updating his followers in TikTok.
Away from the small screen is the reality of the situation, as the hunt for Jay enters its 13th day.
It’s a period that promises to be pivotal, with the Spanish Civil Guard calling on volunteer agencies such as Civil Protection and firefighters, as well as “individual volunteers who are experts in rugged search terrain” for a “massive search”.
In a case that has seen every twist and turn followed in places well beyond the rugged terrain of North West Tenerife, today feels like the beginning of one last push to try to find Jay Slater.
World
Body pulled from mine after police cut off supplies to ‘smoke out’ thousands of illegal miners
A body has been recovered from a South African mine after police cut off basic supplies in an effort to force around 4,000 illegal miners to resurface.
The body has emerged from the closed gold mine in the northwest town of Stilfontein a day after South Africa’s government said it would not help the illegal miners.
Around 20 people have surfaced from the mineshaft this week as police wait nearby to arrest all those appearing from underground.
It comes a day after a cabinet minister said the government was trying to “smoke them [the miners] out”.
The move is part of the police’s “Close the Hole” operation, whereby officers cut off supplies of food, water and other basic necessities to get those who have entered illegally to come out.
Local reports suggest the supply routes were cut off at the mine around two months ago, with relatives of the miners seen in the area as the stand-off continues.
Relatives of miners and community members wait at the mine shaft. Pic: AP
A decomposed body was brought up on Thursday, with pathologists on the scene, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said.
It comes after South African cabinet minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Wednesday that the government would not send any help to the illegal miners, known in the country as zama zamas, because they are involved in a criminal act.
“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped; criminals are to be prosecuted. We didn’t send them there,” Ms Ntshavheni said.
An aerial view of a mineshaft. Pic: AP
Senior police and defence officials are expected to visit the area on Friday to “reinforce the government’s commitment to bringing this operation to a safe and lawful conclusion”, according to a media advisory from the police.
In the last few weeks, over 1,000 miners have surfaced at various mines in South Africa’s North West province, where police have cut off supplies.
Many of the miners were reported to be weak, hungry and sickly after going for weeks without basic supplies.
Illegal mining remains common in South Africa’s old gold-mining areas, with miners going into closed shafts to dig for any possible remaining deposits.
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Relatives of miners and community members wait near the mine shaft. Pic: AP
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The illegal miners are often from neighbouring countries, and police say the illegal operations involve larger syndicates that employ the miners.
Their presence in closed mines has also created problems with nearby communities, which complain that the illegal miners commit crimes ranging from robberies to rape.
Illegal mining groups are known to be heavily armed and disputes between rival groups sometimes result in fatal confrontations.
World
Ukrainian frontline commander warns: ‘The world is scared of Russia and losing is not only our problem’
In the courtyard of a farmhouse now home to soldiers of the Ukrainian army’s 47th mechanised brigade, I’m introduced to a weary-looking unit by their commander Captain Oleksandr “Sasha” Shyrshyn.
We are about 10km from the border with Russia, and beyond it lies the Kursk region Ukraine invaded in the summer – and where this battalion is now fighting.
The 47th is a crack fighting assault unit.
They’ve been brought to this area from the fierce battles in the country’s eastern Donbas region to bolster Ukrainian forces already here.
War latest: Russia ready to carry out ‘massive attack’
The captain known by his men as ‘Genius’
In the summer, Ukraine launched an incursion into Russian territory, in Kursk
Captain Shyrshyn explains that among the many shortages the military has to deal with, the lack of infantry is becoming a critical problem.
Sasha is just 30 years old, but he is worldly-wise. He used to run an organisation helping children in the country’s east before donning his uniform and going to war.
He is famous in Ukraine and is regarded as one of the country’s top field commanders, who isn’t afraid to express his views on the war and how it’s being waged.
His nom de guerre is ‘Genius’, a nickname given to him by his men.
Captain Sasha Shyrshyn and Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay
‘Don’t worry, it’s not a minefield’
Sasha invited me to see one of the American Bradley fighting vehicles his unit uses.
We walk down a muddy lane before he says it’s best to go cross-country.
“We can go that way, don’t worry it’s not a minefield,” he jokes.
He leads us across a muddy field and into a forest where the vehicle is hidden from Russian surveillance drones that try to hunt both American vehicles and commanders.
Sasha shows me a picture of the house they had been staying in only days before – it was now completely destroyed after a missile strike.
Fortunately, neither he, nor any of his men, were there at the time.
“They target commanders,” he says with a smirk.
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‘The world is scared of Russia’
It takes me a moment or two to realise we are only a few steps away from the Bradley, dug in and well hidden beneath the trees.
The disguised American Bradley vehicle hidden in the forest
Sasha tells me the Bradley is the finest vehicle he has ever used.
A vehicle so good, he says, it’s keeping the Ukrainian army going in the face of Russia’s overwhelming numbers of soldiers.
He explains: “Almost all our work on the battlefield is cooperation infantry with the Bradley. So we use it for evacuations, for moving people from one place to another, as well as for fire-covering.
“This vehicle is very safe and has very good characteristics.”
The American Bradley fighting vehicle that Ukrainian soldiers have found vital in their efforts
Billions of dollars in military aid has been given to Ukraine by the United States, and this vehicle is one of the most valuable assets the US has provided.
Ukraine is running low on men to fight, and the weaponry it has is not enough, especially if it can’t fire long-range missiles into Russia itself – which it is currently not allowed to do.
If President-elect Donald Trump cuts the supply of military aid, the Ukrainians will lose – it’s that simple.
US President-elect Donald Trump has been clear he intends to change his nation’s policy on the war in Ukraine. Pic: Reuters
Sasha says: “We have a lack of weapons, we have a lack of artillery, we have a lack of infantry, and as the world doesn’t care about justice, and they don’t want to finish the war by our win, they are afraid of Russia.
“I’m sorry but they’re scared, they’re scared, and it’s not the right way.”
Like pretty much everyone in Ukraine, Sasha is waiting to see what the US election result will mean for his country.
He is sceptical about a deal with Russia.
“Our enemy only understands the language of power. And you cannot finish the war in 24 hours, or during the year without hard decisions, without a fight, so it’s impossible. It’s just talking without results,” he tells me.
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‘Losing will be not only our problem’
These men expect the fierce battles inside Kursk to intensify in the coming days.
Indeed, alongside the main supply route into Kursk, workers are already building new defensive positions – unfurling miles of razor wire and digging bunkers for the Ukrainian army if it finds itself in retreat.
Barbed wire rolled out in the Sumy region ahead of expected fighting
Tank traps in the Sumy region
Sasha and his men are realistic about support fatigue from the outside world but will keep fighting to the last if they have to.
“I understand this is only our problem, it’s only our issue, and we have to fight this battle, like we have to defend ourselves, it’s our responsibility,” Sasha said.
But he points out everyone should realise just how critical this moment in time is.
“If we look at it widely, we have to understand that us losing will be not only our problem, but it will be for all the world.”
Stuart Ramsay reports from northeastern Ukraine with camera operator Toby Nash, and producers Dominique Van Heerden, Azad Safarov, and Nick Davenport.
A weather warning has been issued for parts of Spain, as the country counts the cost of recent flooding.
The orange warnings are in place for parts of southwestern Spain – the area around Seville down towards Gibraltar.
Up to 8cm (3ins) of rain could fall within 12 hours, but the weekend looks much more settled in the country.
The latest warnings come just two weeks after flash flooding in Valencia and other parts of the country killed more than 200 people.
Malaga saw 14.2cm (5.6ins) of rainfall on Wednesday – Spain’s highest of the day – most of which fell in six hours.
All train services were halted in Malaga. Some flights have now resumed after the initial disruption.
Pic: Jamie Marchant
Emergency services in the province have moved 3,000 people from homes at risk of flooding close to the Guadalhorce River in the west of the city.
Jamie Marchant, 29, from Caerphilly in South Wales travelled to Malaga last Wednesday.
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He told Sky News that “debris” had been left behind by the recent rainfall in the region.
“Everyone is pitching in to clean up and some shops are opening as usual,” he added.
Orange warnings for the Valencia region in eastern Spain expired earlier on Thursday.
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The adverse weather could lead to total insured losses of more than €4bn (£3.33bn), according to credit rating agency Morningstar DBRS.
Much of the claims are expected to be covered by the Spanish government’s insurance pool, the agency said, but insurance premiums are likely to increase.
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