Jay Slater’s loved ones ‘absolutely heartbroken’ by ‘horrible lies’

As the search for Jay Slater stretched into yet another day on Tuesday, his friends and family have once again faced another raft of abusive messages online from cruel trolls who are compounding their anguish over the missing teenager.

19-year-old Jay, from Lancashire, has now been missing since June 17, when he disappeared in the mountains of north west Tenerife. He had stayed at an Airbnb rental the night before he vanished after ‘walking off alone’ in a remote part of the Island.

So far the rescue effort to bring Jay home has seen members of the Civil Guard, fire crews and mountain rescue teams deployed to the vast and ‘treacherous’ Rural de Teno Park, while Jay’s friends and family have also travelled to the island to assist the search. Meanwhile, Jay’s mum Debbie Duncan revealed she had “barely slept” and is “at her wit’s end with worry”.

Yet despite the anguish surrounding Jay’s absence, the apprentice bricklayer’s friends and family have also been forced to face off against countless false allegations on social media, which have ranged from claims they were ‘partying on boats’ through to false reports that Jay’s body had been found.

READ MORE: Jay Slater missing in Tenerife LIVE with police ‘considering all possibilities’ – latest updates

Hitting out at the claims on social media, the mother of Jay’s best friend, Rachel Harg, who is also the admin of the Find Jay Slater Facebook group, revealed the extent of the toll the trolling was taking, as she took to social media to slam yet another fake post and revealed it had left her “absolutely heartbroken.”

Sharing a screenshot of a video online, which falsely claimed that Rachel had been partying on a boat instead of searching for the teen, Rachel hit out at the post as she wrote: “This is another horrible lie about myself firstly this isn’t me !! I took the video on my last holiday on a boat trip the lady in this video I don’t know it was just me videoing the trip I was on with my family.”

“Secondly this was when I went to Turkey in April this clip someone stole it and saying am in Tenerife partying.I am here looking for my sons best friend not partying if anyone did see this !!!!!!” She then concluded the post with “Absolutely heartbroken. It was a previous holiday,” before sharing a broken heart emoji.

Jay’s mum told the Daily Mail: “The Spanish police are doing a good job and we are getting updated from the consulate so we just put our faith in them. I know people in the UK have come forward as well who were at the festival and they are giving details of what they know but I’m not being told about that. Jay’s very good friends from home have also been over and have put up posters. They are good kids and like me just want him home.”

One of Jay’s friends assisting in the search, 19-year-old engineer Jessica, who said Jay was her ex-boyfriend, told the paper she was sick and tired of “online detectives” spreading malicious rumours and gossip about the search and about her friend. She railed against keyboard warriors and told them to stop their hurtful actions.

Despite the trolling and claims to the contrary, the search for Jay Slater remains ongoing with specialist sniffer dogs having been brought in to help with the intense search to retrace Jay’s last known steps and hopefully find the missing teen. Tenerife police confirmed on Tuesday that several dogs from Madrid would be joining the search and rescue effort which is now in its second week.

The force said: “The Civil Guard continues with the search device for the young British man who disappeared in the Masca neighbourhood, belonging to the municipality of Buenavista del Norte (Tenerife), in which different units of the Civil Guard participate. In addition, today several Canine Guides of the Civil Guard dispatched from Madrid with their canine agents specialised in the search for people on large areas of land, belonging to the Cynological Service of the Civil Guard.”