The family of missing Jay Slater have vowed to remain in Tenerife and continue the search, despite Spanish police calling off the search for him after 14 days.
Rachel Hargreaves is a close friend of Jay’s heartbroken parents, Debbie Duncan, 55, and Warren Slater, 58, and has come to the island to help search for the 19-year-old. She said: “Nothing has changed. We will continue to search for him.”
Ms Hargreaves runs the family’s official Facebook group, which was set up to gather information about Jay’s disappearance. Her son Brad, 19, was on holiday with an apprentice bricklayer when he disappeared on Monday, June 17.
Debbie, a school finance officer, was apparently informed of the police decision just before the officers confirmed it at 10am on Sunday morning.
The announcement came almost exactly 24 hours after rescuers, including police, firefighters and mountain guides, launched the final search in the mountainous area where his mobile phone last “beeped” on Monday, June 17.
A spokesman for the Guardia Civil said: “The search operations have ended, but the case is still active,” adding that “search operations, which are carried out daily in Masca and its surroundings, are still ongoing.” Work is ongoing to close the place where Jay was last seen.
However, if any information is received that justifies a new investigation, it will be considered. A large-scale search yesterday did not find anything related. “
Jay, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, went missing after returning to his holiday island accommodation on foot. A search in the village of Masca, close to his last known location, covered steep, rocky terrain with ravines, trails and footpaths.
Jay had attended the NRG music festival with two friends before he disappeared and his last known location was in Teno Park, a rural area in the northern Canary Islands, about an 11-hour walk from the accommodation.
He had reportedly travelled to an Airbnb in Masca and the two people who reportedly rented the property were later found to be “unrelated” to the incident. Jay’s friend Brad Hargreaves told ITV’s This Morning on Friday that he had been on a video call with Jay before he disappeared and heard him go off the road.
“He was walking down the road on his phone and he fell, not a big fall but just a little fall and he fell and he said, ‘I’ll call you back, I’ll call you back’ because he thinks someone called him