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: Emergency services using drones hone in on area
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.”
A 15-year-old boy has died after “getting into difficulty” in a lake in southeast London, police say.
Officers and paramedics were called shortly after 3pm on Friday to Beckenham Place Park in Lewisham.
The Metropolitan Police said a boy “was recovered from the lake” at around 10.42pm the same day.
“He was taken to hospital where he was sadly pronounced dead. His death is being treated as unexpected but not believed to be suspicious,” according to the force.
The boy’s family has been told and are being supported by specialist officers.
The force originally said the child was 16 years old, but has since confirmed his age as 15.
In the earlier statement, officers said emergency services carried out a search and the park was evacuated.
Emergency teams were called to Beckenham Place Park on Friday afternoon
Beckenham Place Park, which borders the London borough of Bromley, covers around 240 acres, according to the park’s website.
The lake is described as 285 metres long, reaching depths of up to 3.5 metres.
It is designed as a swimming lake for open-water swimming and paddle boarding.
A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said on Friday: “We were called at 3.02pm this afternoon to reports of a person in the water.
“We sent resources to the scene, including an ambulance crew, an incident response officer and members of our hazardous area response team.”
Emergency teams have not explained how the boy entered the water, or whether he was accompanied by others.
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