New key details of Jay Slater’s last night at Airbnb with ‘Johnny Vegas’ before ‘saying he was hungry & vanishing’
NEW details of the night Brit teen Jay Slater went missing have been revealed by an ex-cop.
The former detective quizzed one of the people who last saw Jay on exactly what happened in the hours before he vanished on June 17 – laying out the most detailed timeline of events yet.
Mark Williams-Thomas – who has worked on documentaries about Madeleine McCann and Jammi Savile – says he interviewed convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, 31.
Ayub – now thought to be the mysterious “Johnny Vegas”, a nickname originally believed to belong to the second man Jay was with on the night he vanished – made claims about why the teen left the Airbnb.
In a video shared on X today, Mark provided a detailed breakdown of Ayub’s claims – and also revealed he fears Jay’s disappearance may be linked to a “criminal network”, without elaborating further.
Both Ayub and the unknown second man have been ruled out by Spanish police and deemed “not relevant” to the case.
But Jay’s family are piling on the pressure, and want more from both men who they believe could be key in finding Jay.
Qassim’s version of events seems to align closely with what we already know of the night, but the investigator revealed what happened, in detail, what he claimed happened on that night.
Mark said: “Jay wanted to carry on partying and he said he had nowhere to stay.
“So he said he could come back to his.
“They say in the car, they played music and chatted before stopping to get a drink at a cafe just prior to entering the mountains.”
Ayub claimed he was driving, with the unidentified man in the passenger seat and Jay in the backseat.
He claimed they got back to the Airbnb in Masca – some 11 hours walk from where Jay was supposed to stay – and said he could sleep on the sofa.
Jay was offered a blanket and a towel – and was given a cigarette by Ayub.
Mark says before the teen slept on the sofa he asked for a phone charger.
The ex-cop said: “Jay then asked for a phone charger he (Ayub) said ‘go into my friends room, he’s asleep, take his charger, and you can put your phone on charge’.
“There was no charging point by the sofa.”
He went on: “Ayub says he then goes to sleep and then he’s woken by a buzzer.
“Ayub says he comes down the stairs, Jay says to him ‘what’s that annoying noise’ which was the doorbell.
“Ayub says he opens the door and speaks to a woman and a man and they gesture that he needed to move his car.”
When he moves his car, the ex-cop claims: “He looks in the rear view mirror and he sees Jay talking to a woman, he’s got his trainers on, as though he’s about to leave.
“Jay then says to Ayub having moved the car, the woman says “I can get a bus every ten minutes” and Ayub says he says to him “mate just chill out I’ll drop you off in town when I wake up properly.”
He apparently declines, saying he was “hungry” need some “scran” and how the woman told him he could get the bus.
William-Thomas continues that Ayub claims he told Jay there was no bus – but the teen left anyway.
Ayub insists he then went back to sleep.
Qassim then says he gets a call from Jay’s friend.
Mark claims: “He then says he gets a call from a friend of Jay’s who says that he’s in a ditch somewhere and he’s been cut by a cactus.
“As part of this investigation, we have sought to identify and speak with as many people that Jay had contact with whilst in Tenerife.
“The result of this digging has opened up an established criminal network, with links to drugs, violent crime, and theft.
“You will appreciate that at this stage I cannot expand any further on what we now know.”
However, at this stage, I’m unable to say if this network has anything to do with Jay’s disappearance – but remain open-minded as we continue to investigate.”
He ends the video: “My thoughts at this time remain with Jay’s family and friends.”
As Mark was making his revelations on his X account, The Sun spoke to Jay’s dad Warren on the ground in Tenerife.
The 58-year-old returned to the mountainous region to continue the hunt for his son, which was officially called off after 12 days last week.
Questions continue grow around Jay’s last night before he vanished, Warren said: “Everything stinks.
“It’s just a riddle and I don’t know the outcome.”
Warren went on to say that he believes the two men who last saw Jay could be key to helping finally find him.
He added: “My starting position, I’ve said this from day one, ask the two men who’ve taken him – and then start from there.”
He went on: “We’re going round and round in circles.
“If they want to go and search a house they have to go to court first.”
Jay left after spending the night at the remote cottage in Masca.
He then telephoned friend Lucy Mae Law, 18, to say he was “lost in the middle of nowhere”, with no water and only one per cent left on his phone battery.
His family are now leading fresh attempts to find him within the rugged terrain high up in the mountains overlooking the party island.
Warren added: “I was quite disappointed last Saturday when they did the search, they said the whole island was going to turn out.
“Let all the big boys do it, the police told me the big, big search was Saturday.
“We got down in that valley at 2pm and there wasn’t a soul.
“They might have been there I don’t know, they might have been there before me.
“But I was quite disappointed because I expected every fire engine, ambulance…to be looking for him.
“You need Columbo.”
Other mysteries around the case focus Jay allegedly admitting he stole a “Rolex watch” worth £12,000 on the night he disappeared.
But the case has also sprung up countless conspiracy theories and become an obsession for online sleuths.
Hundreds of thousands of Facebook detectives has signed up to various chat groups as they pour over detail.
Cops used sniffer dogs, drones, a helicopter, dozens of volunteers and mountain rescue experts but to no avail .
They officially called off the search last Sunday.
And Jay’s uncle Glen Duncan yesterday angrily hit out at the police investigation, saying he wished he could “burst into the police station” and saying he fears a “third party” could have been involved.
He told The Sun yesterdaythat he doesn’t believe police are taking the search seriously and labelled it a “massive let down”.
The Mysterious Case of Jay Slater
MONDAY July 8 marks three weeks since Jay Slater, a 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, vanished in Tenerife.
The apprentice bricklayer, who flew out to the popular holiday island for a rave festival with friends Lucy Law and Brad Page, has made headlines around the country.
On Sunday June 16 the three of them headed off to one of the events at Papagayo nightclub.
In the early hours of Monday 17 – Lucy and Brad were ready to head back to their hotel, but Jay wanted to keep partying.
It was then that he left the south of the island and headed to an Airbnb in the northwest with two British men.
The Sun revealed the identity of one of them – convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, who spent nine years behind bars in the UK.
For days it was thought that the second mystery man went by the name ‘Johnny Vegas’.
On Sunday former detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who is out in Tenerife investigating, said Qassim told him he is in fact the man behind the nickname ‘Johnny Vegas’.
We don’t yet know the identity of the second man – who remains a key part of the puzzle in Jay’s mysterious disappearance.
Qassim claims he drove Jay and the friend back to their accommodation and said they all went to sleep.
In the morning he offered to drive the teen back to the Los Cristianos resort after a nap, but Jay, hungry and tired, said he wanted to leave immediately.
Lucy, the last person to speak to Jay, claims she had a panicked call from him soon after he left the holiday let, telling her he was lost and thirsty, his phone was about to die and that he’d been cut by a cactus.
Jay had been seen by the owner of the Airbnb that morning wandering around near the Rural de Teno park – a mountainous region close-by.
He is believed to have been attempting the 11-hour trek back to his hotel, despite the alleged offer of a lift and more buses scheduled for the day.
It was there that his phone last pinged – and he hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
Mark Williams-Thomas has claimed he left the Airbnb quickly, and was “scared”.
Bizarrely, Qassim says he was woken up that morning by a phone call from an unnamed friend of Jay, saying he was “in a ditch” somewhere and had been “cut by a cactus”.
Jay’s friend Lucy claimed to have “tracked down” the two men in the Airbnb after he vanished – quizzing them on the morning of Jay’s disappearance.
Some reports have suggested Lucy knew the two men, although it is not clear how.
She has dubbed his disappearance “weird and suspicious”.
Both men were questioned by Spanish cops on June 17 but quickly deemed “irrelevant” to the investigation and cleared to fly back to the UK.
Police spent almost two weeks searching for Jay in the Tenerife mountains, scouring a 2,000ft ravine, before calling it off on Sunday June 30.
Jay’s family have repeatedly slammed the Spanish investigation into his bizarre disappearance.
His uncle, Glen Duncan, is convinced of “third party involvement” and has pointed fingers at the two men Jay went back with on Monday morning.
And the teen’s devastated dad, Warren Slater, says “everything stinks”
He told The Sun: “My starting position, I’ve said this from day one, ask the two men who’ve taken him – and then start from there.”
A number of unanswered questions remain, over why Jay would have travelled so far with two older men he didn’t know, why said men would have taken him in, and why he braved the Tenerife mountains with no phone battery, water or heat protection for a day-long walk.