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.
Image: 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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3:55
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.
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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.”
Image: 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.”
Image: 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.”
Image: 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?'”
Image: 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.
It was expected that the three-day state visit would take place in September after Mr Trump let slip earlier in April that he believed that was when his second “fest” was being planned for.
Windsor was also anticipated to be the location after the US president told reporters in the Oval Office that the letter from the King said Windsor would be the setting. Refurbishment works at Buckingham Palace also meant that Windsor was used last week for French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit.
This will be Mr Trump’s second state visit to the UK, an unprecedented gesture towards an American leader, having previously been invited to Buckingham Palace in 2019.
Image: Donald Trump and Melania Trump posing with Charles and Camilla in 2019. Pic: Reuters
He has also been to Windsor Castle before, in 2018, but despite the considerable military pageantry of the day, and some confusion around inspecting the guard, it was simply for tea with Queen Elizabeth II.
Further details of what will happen during the three-day visit in September will be announced in due course.
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On Friday, Sky News revealed it is now unlikely that the US president will address parliament, usually an honour given to visiting heads of state as part of their visit. Some MPs had raised significant concerns about him being given the privilege.
But the House of Commons will not be sitting at the time of Mr Trump’s visit as it will rise for party conference season on the 16 September, meaning the president will not be able to speak in parliament as President Macron did during his state visit this week. However, the House of Lords will be sitting.
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After reading it, Mr Trump said it was a “great, great honour”, adding “and that says at Windsor – that’s really something”.
Image: In February, Sir Keir Starmer revealed a letter from the King inviting Donald Trump to the UK. Pic: Reuters
In the letter, the King suggested they might meet at Balmoral or Dumfries House in Scotland first before the much grander state visit. However, it is understood that, although all options were explored, complexities in both the King and Mr Trump’s diaries meant it wasn’t possible.
This week, it emerged that Police Scotland are planning for a summer visit from the US president, which is likely to see him visit one or both of his golf clubs in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire, and require substantial policing resources and probably units to be called in from elsewhere in the UK.
Precedent for second-term US presidents, who have already made a state visit, is usually tea or lunch with the monarch at Windsor Castle, as was the case for George W Bush and Barack Obama.
A small plane has crashed at Southend Airport in Essex.
Essex Police said it was at the scene of a “serious incident”.
Images posted online showed huge flames and a large cloud of black smoke, with one witness saying they saw a “fireball”.
A police statement said: “We were alerted shortly before 4pm to reports of a collision involving one 12-metre plane.
“We are working with all emergency services at the scene now and that work will be ongoing for several hours.
“We would please ask the public to avoid this area where possible while this work continues.”
Image: A huge fireball near the airport. Pic: Ben G
It has been reported that the plane involved in the incident is a Beech B200 Super King Air.
According to flight-tracking service Flightradar, it took off at 3.48pm and was bound for Lelystad, a city in the Netherlands.
One man, who was at Southend Airport with his family around the time of the incident, said the aircraft “crashed headfirst into the ground”.
John Johnson said: “About three or four seconds after taking off, it started to bank heavily to its left, and then within a few seconds of that happening, it more or less inverted and crashed.
“There was a big fireball. Obviously, everybody was in shock in terms of witnessing it. All the kids saw it and the families saw it.”
Mr Johnson added that he phoned 999 to report the crash.
Southend Airport said the incident involved “a general aviation aircraft”.
Four flights scheduled to take off from Southend this afternoon were cancelled, according to its website.
Flightradar data shows two planes that had been due to land at Southend were diverted to nearby airports London Gatwick and London Stansted.
Image: Plumes of black smoke. Pic: UKNIP
Essex County Fire and Rescue Service said four crews, along with off-road vehicles, have attended the scene.
Four ambulances and four hazardous area response team vehicles are also at the airport, as well as an air ambulance, the East of England Ambulance Service said.
Its statement described the incident as “still developing”.
Image: Fire engines at the airport
David Burton-Sampson, the MP for Southend West and Leigh, posted on social media: “I am aware of an incident at Southend Airport. Please keep away and allow the emergency services to do their work.
“My thoughts are with everyone involved.”
Local councillor Matt Dent said on X: “At present all I know is that a small plane has crashed at the airport. My thoughts are with all those involved, and with the emergency services currently responding to the incident.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Another hint that tax rises are coming in this autumn’s budget has been given by a senior minister.
Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander was asked if Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of the cabinet had discussed hiking taxes in the wake of the government’s failed welfare reforms, which were shot down by their own MPs.
Trevor Phillips asked specifically if tax rises were discussed among the cabinet last week – including on an away day on Friday.
Tax increases were not discussed “directly”, Ms Alexander said, but ministers were “cognisant” of the challenges facing them.
Asked what this means, Ms Alexander added: “I think your viewers would be surprised if we didn’t recognise that at the budget, the chancellor will need to look at the OBR forecast that is given to her and will make decisions in line with the fiscal rules that she has set out.
“We made a commitment in our manifesto not to be putting up taxes on people on modest incomes, working people. We have stuck to that.”
Ms Alexander said she wouldn’t comment directly on taxes and the budget at this point, adding: “So, the chancellor will set her budget. I’m not going to sit in a TV studio today and speculate on what the contents of that budget might be.
“When it comes to taxation, fairness is going to be our guiding principle.”
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Afterwards, shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Phillips: “That sounds to me like a barely disguised reference to tax rises coming in the autumn.”
He then went on to repeat the Conservative attack lines that Labour are “crashing the economy”.
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10:43
Chris Philp also criticsed the government’s migration deal with France
Mr Philp then attacked the prime minister as “weak” for being unable to get his welfare reforms through the Commons.
Discussions about potential tax rises have come to the fore after the government had to gut its welfare reforms.
Sir Keir had wanted to change Personal Independence Payments (PIP), but a large Labour rebellion forced him to axe the changes.
With the savings from these proposed changes – around £5bn – already worked into the government’s sums, they will now need to find the money somewhere else.
The general belief is that this will take the form of tax rises, rather than spending cuts, with more money needed for military spending commitments, as well as other areas of priority for the government, such as the NHS.