Jay Slater’s desperate family face having to PAY to scour key ravine at centre of search as anti-tourist tax begins
JAY Slater’s desperate family face having to PAY to scour the ravine where the teen vanished in Tenerife.
Authorities in Masca are expected to slap visitors to the area with a £24 fee due to “overcrowding”.
Jay, 19, was last seen on June 17 walking uphill in the remote village on the northwest of the island.
He had gone back to an Airbnb in the desolate park with two men after a night of partying.
In the morning, he attempted the 11-hour walk back to his own accommodation after missing the bus.
Apprentice bricklayer Jay made a frantic final call to friend Lucy Law to say he was lost.
His phone pinged for the final time shortly before 9am that morning in the rocky terrain.
He has not been seen or heard from since – and Spanish cops called off the official search almost two weeks ago.
Jay’s family and friends, plus some volunteers, have since taken it upon themselves to scour unforgiving terrain for Jay.
Among them are amateur TikTok sleuths who have jetted to Tenerife to film themselves hunting for the teen.
But it is understood from Friday tourists will have to pay to walk the ravine’s trails.
It is expected to be open to hikers only, who will have to prebook and pay £23 each.
Only 275 people will be allowed a day – and no more than 100,000 a year, according to plans by Tenerife Island Council.
Officials have blamed “overcrowding” for the move – but it is unclear what this will mean for volunteers still looking for Jay.
Residents will not have to pay and will not be counted in the daily limit.
After weeks of endless searching from Spanish cops, Jay’s family and volunteers no trace of the teen has been found with many feeling the hunt was nearing an end.
But cops are said to be remaining hopeful that many of the questions and puzzles surrounding Jay will be cleared up soon.
Spanish cops are starting to probe three new bombshell leads with one theory saying the missing 19-year-old could still be alive in another part of Tenerife.
A source close to the Spanish Guardia Civil told The Sun the case is still “very much open” with “all scenarios being kept in mind”.
Investigators say they haven’t deemed the teen as “missing feared dead” yet as they continue to mule over the mystery case.
A police source told The Sun: “The case is very much open because there are still a number of unanswered questions which officers must find answers to.
“They are convinced someone, somewhere knows what happened to Jay or knows where is now is, and that’s what they are working towards trying to establish as quickly as they can.”
“Even though the ground search for Jay is over, the investigation into where he might be still remains very much open.
“One line of inquiry is a theory that Jay might even be in a different part of Tenerife and still alive. All scenarios are being kept in mind.”
The Spanish Guardia Civil deployed a mammoth search party in hopes of finding Jay when he was first reported missing.
The Brit’s family and friends all flew out to look for him as well as they called for help from volunteers.
Efforts were centred around Rural de Teno park – a mountainous region near to where his phone’s location pinged for the final time.
As well as the town of Santiago del Teide when apparent CCTV footage caught Jay wandering across the road.
But after cops found no trace of Jay, the official search was called off on June 30 after two weeks.
His heartbroken and frustrated family vowed to carry on the hunt regardless as they scoured the mountains themselves.
A new team led by local hiker Juan Garcia, and including Jay’s uncle Glen Duncan, dad Warren and brother Zak, focused on an area of a gorge close before exploring caves, ravines and slopes.
Seasoned mountain experts who were flown out by Jay’s family said the search was hampered by the altitude, heat and the size of the area.
As Chris Pennington, a British army veteran who has been helping the search party in Tenerife, claimed the ravine Jay may have vanished in “hasn’t been searched properly” due to how vast it is.
Jay’s devastated dad Warren Slater, 58, called on Interpol and British cops to fly out as he warned it would take “an army 10 years” to search the whole area.
Lancashire police confirmed to The Sun that they will not be going out to aid in the search.
Without an invitation from Spanish police they are unable to jet out, The Sun understands.
The desperate dad has remained hopeful that they will find Jay but has been vocal about the family’s anguish over the case.
“It’s just a riddle and I don’t know the outcome,” Warren added.
“We’re going round and round in circles.”
THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF JAY SLATER
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
Monday July 8 marked 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 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.
