Internet sleuths fly to Tenerife to join Jay Slater hunt

Internet sleuths have flown out on one-way tickets to Tenerife to help find missing Jay Slater – echoing the case of Nicola Bulley.

TikTok influencers and adventurers – equipped with hiking boots and camcorders –  filming themselves trekking through mountain scrubland on the island looking for the 19-year-old Briton who vanished nine days ago.

In short videos, they describe the hostile cacti-filled landscape, the altitude, and the steep cliffs around where Jay was last seen

A flurry of wild conspiracy theories about what has happened to the teenager, who has a criminal past, is currently swirling around online.

They include false and unfounded claims that he has faked his disappearance to pocket cash from a GoFundMe page, that he has been kidnapped after a drugs deal went wrong with criminal enforcers holding him to pay back the debt, and that he may have actually pocketed the money himself and is lying low until the heat dies down.

It is eerily similar to when Ms Bulley disappeared last January after amateur detectives besieged the small Lancashire village of St Michael’s on Wyre where she was walking her dog.

They searched the river path, caravan park and fields where she was last seen but Lancashire Police were forced to issue a warning to stay away because those ‘playing private detective’ were getting in the way of the proper rescue teams.

Ms Bulley’s body was found half-submerged in the River Wyre on February 19, 2023 by a self-styled psychic who had been walking along a waterside path.

Jay, an apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was last seen on the morning of Monday June 17 after going back to an Airbnb with two British men he had met while partying on the last night of the three-day NRG music festival.

A woman saw him in the village of Masca at 8am and told him the bus back to his accommodation was due at 10am. She later reported he was walking ‘alone and fast.’

At least five Britons are understood to have left home in the UK to fly out to Tenerife and hike through the Macizo de Teno mountains near the village of Masca, where Jay’s mobile phone was last pinged.

One is Paul Arnott, 29, who flew out from Fort William three days ago and has been updating his TikTok page called ‘DOWNTHERAPIDS’ where he has 193,000 followers.

On one of his videos uploaded this morning, he claimed he is being welcomed by local police, fire crews and search teams.

He revealed: ‘So guys, I just need to put it out there, the police in Tenerife are absolutely fantastic. They’ve literally just been driving me all round the mountain. I’ve got into two different vehicles. They’ve literally been telling what’s been going on.

‘They’ve got dogs out at the moment and they’ve just asked me to come down here because they don’t want too many people around (as the dogs search).

‘And what they have actually said, just to confirm, the police have told me they will welcome anyone who is actually competent and who wants to help the search so I think guys when people come and they’re not dressed appropriately and stuff like that, that can put them off.

‘But I showed them my videos and all my credentials and explained what I’ve done my whole life, my emergency background and yeah they’re absolutely amazing so I’m just checking down here.’

He then panned the camera around to reveal where he is searching and said: ‘I’m checking all down the ravine and I’m not going to be filming too much today guys because it’s going to be a super busy day but, yeah, I’m going to be checking all this area with the Spanish dogs.’

He ended the clip by describing his hostile surroundings as ‘super, super dodgy terrain.’

Mr Arnott – who is normally based in Bedfordshire – flew out from the Scottish Highlands at a cost of £400 after scaling Britain’s tallest peak, Ben Nevis, to clear litter which was strewn around one of the mountain shelters.

Explaining why he came to Tenerife, he told Sky News: ‘I heard on the internet, but they needed help.

‘I was following the story and I wasn’t planning to come out, but as soon as I heard they needed help, that’s when I came out.’

Helping Paul is another British TikTokker called Andrew Knight, a travel and lifestyle vlogger who goes by the name @theknightsrider1 and who has come armed with a drone to help locate Jay.

He said he has been liaising with Jay’s family and in video clips encourages others to join the search but to not come alone.

Mr Knight, who now lives in Tenerife, has been searching a mountainside close to the spot where Jay last used his phone.

He told his 57,300 followers: ‘I want to show you just how treacherous and steep this landscape is. A lot of the pictures online don’t really do it justice…just how treacherous and barren and remote this landscape is.’

In another similarity with the Nicola Bulley case, former detective-turned-TV sleuth Mark Williams-Thomas has now landed in Tenerife to help with the search.

He had previously written on social media his hopes of linking with Jay’s family saying: ‘Having feet on the ground and looking at the scenario and circumstances, I know I will get to the bottom of this in three days.

‘I would quickly be able to establish whether or not there are suspicious circumstances – but I’d need total access to everything and to speak to all the witnesses involved.

‘If the family work with me, I will get them answers. It is crucial for the family.

‘It is difficult for them, dealing with foreign police who handle it differently. But I’d need their full co-operation, I’d need to speak to every witness involved; those that he’s been with since he’s been on the island.

‘Some people will be more persons of interest than others.’

Mr Williams-Thomas was the lead sleuth on the ITV Exposure documentary, The Other Side of Jimmy Savile.

It comes as the friends and family of Jay have hit out at growing online speculation about his disappearance.

Friend Bradley Hargreaves, 19, who flew out to Tenerife with Jay for their first lads holiday abroad, lashed out at internet sleuths and online trollers who have accused him of being involved.

Posting on his social media Bradley said:’Don’t know why l’ve to jump on here to explain myself to the Facebook world but if any of yous believe me his best mate has anything to do with him going missing your honestly not all there.

‘I’ve known Jay most of my life go to all these raves an what not together an this was our first lads holiday with him nobody actually knows the true story not even me because there isn’t a factual story that has come out just aload of s**t that has been said by different people.

‘Anyway won’t be saying much more on here but just thought l’d get that out.’

Jay’s father, meanwhile, accused the Spanish police of keeping the family in the dark over the search for his son.

Warren Slater said that although some officers had been ‘brilliant’, he was becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of communication from others as he desperately tries to find his 19-year-old son.

‘Nobody’s told us,’ he told reporters. ‘The mountain police [have been] brilliant… but I don’t know how the other police [force] works.

‘They could be doing everything but if they are doing [something], they’re not telling us what they’re doing, if you understand what I’m saying.’

The teenager was last heard from at around 8.30am when he called his friend Lucy Mae Law to say he was walking back to his accommodation after missing the bus. He told her he was ‘lost in the mountains with one per cent battery and no water’.

The walk from where Jay’s phone last pinged at 8.50am in the Rural de Teno national park, near Masca, to his accommodation would have taken about 11 hours on foot.

He has not been seen or heard from since but hopes were raised yesterday by a new CCTV image of what the family believe could be Jay in Santiago de Teide last Monday at around 6pm – nearly ten hours on from his phone’s last live location.

The grainy CCTV is taken close to a church, San Fernando Rey, where Jay’s mother told MailOnline on Saturday that a man has come forward to say he saw someone matching her son’s description sitting on a bench with two men.

The sighting has not been confirmed by local police, who say ‘nothing has been ruled out and nothing has been ruled in’, as they continue to focus their efforts on a ravine near where he was last seen.

It also emerged on Monday that Spanish police are investigating Jay’s background to determine whether it is ‘relevant’ to his disappearance.

Detectives on the holiday island are trying to determine whether Jay’s disappearance is linked to his criminal past after the Spanish press revealed that he was previously involved in a machete attack that left a man fighting for his life.

Jay was part of an eight strong gang who split the skull of Tom Hilton after he was attacked with a machete, golf clubs and an axe.

Mr Hilton was left with injuries to his head which left his skull exposed as well as wounds to his shoulders and legs in the 2021 attack when he was 17 in Rishton, Lancashire.

But in a Facebook message the gang’s victim, Mr Hilton also laid into the conspiracy theorists and said: ‘Whoever is writing on these TikToks, give it a rest. This young lad’s missing and his family’s heartbroken.

‘Put yourself in their shoes. Stop talking nonsense on social and get this lad found, mentioning my name all this and that.

‘Have some respect and help find this boy and get him back to his family.’

Jay was given an 18-month community order with 25 days rehabilitation activities and 150 hours unpaid work for violent disorder – and he went on holiday to Tenerife last week after completing most of his sentence.

His mother Debbie is convinced he has been ‘taken’ and appealed to anyone who was holding him to let him go.

She said: ‘What happened in court is irrelevant, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. What matters more than anything is that my son is missing and we need to find him.’

On Saturday Lucy – the friend who last spoke to Jay and who set up the GoFundMe page for Jay asking for the specific sum of £30,000 – was questioned at length by police although there is no suggestion that she has any involvement in his disappearance.

However, questions have been raised about the donations and where exactly they are going – especially as Debbie has been added and then removed as a beneficiary several times since the page was opened last Thursday.