Body found in Tenerife ‘near last phone location’

Search teams looking for Jay Slater in Tenerife have found a body near the last known location of the missing British teenager’s mobile phone.

The Guardia Civil said its officers and a mountain rescue unit found the body of a young man in the Masca area “after 29 days of non-stop searching”.

The 19-year-old was last seen on 17 June, after visiting an Airbnb rented by two people he had been with at a music festival on the island.

A police statement said that “initial evidence” suggested the person found had “suffered an accident or fall in the inaccessible zone”.

It added that “the discovery was possible thanks to the incessant and discreet search carried out by the Guardia Civil… in which the natural space was preserved so that it would not be filled with onlookers.”

Police said that “all the evidence” suggested the remains found were those of “the young British man who disappeared”.

Full identification of the body is yet to be carried out, it added.

The charity LBT Global, which works with families of people missing overseas, said that the remains were found along with Mr Slater’s clothes and possessions, close to his mobile phone’s last known location.

The group said it was supporting Mr Slater’s family “at this distressing time and ask for everyone to afford them space and privacy to come to terms with the news”.

Mr Slater’s father Warren Slater described his disappearance as “a living hell”, while his mother Debbie Duncan told of her “pain and agony” as no trace could be found.

The search for Mr Slater since his disappearance has involved his family, friends, police and specialist mountain rescue teams as well as volunteers from several countries.

Most recently the family, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was helped by a group of Dutch mountain rescuers.

In Mr Slater’s hometown of Oswaldtwistle, news that the search had resulted in the discovery of a body was met with shock.

Paul Fitzpatrick, the landlord of the Hare And Hounds pub, told BBC Radio Lancashire: “If it’s true that it’s him then we are all devastated for his family, his mum especially.

“She has been a good friend to us all, we’ve known Debbie for years. I’ve been here for 17 years… her boy then would have been a baby.

“It’s horrible news if it is confirmed that it is him.”

The Guardia Civil indicated in its statement that it was members of its Mountain Rescue and Intervention Group who located the “lifeless body” of a young man.

Throughout the month since Mr Slater went missing, his family have refused to give up hope.

On Saturday, a statement of an official fundraising page, which has raised more than £50,000 towards search efforts, described him as a “normal, hardworking young lad from Lancashire who is very loved by all who know him”.

“Although we don’t have any answers to his disappearance we obviously have to remain positive,” his friend Lucy Mae Law posted on behalf of his family.

Lancashire Police, which had previously had its offer to help with the search turned down by the Tenerife police, said in a statement that it “had today been notified by the Guardia Civil that they have found the body of a man and that the indications are that this is Jay Slater”.

The statement added: “While at this stage no formal identification has been carried out our thoughts are very much with Jay’s family at this time, and we continue to offer them our support.”

Search teams have had to contend with difficult terrain throughout their search for Mr Slater.

Tenerife is a volcanic island in the Atlantic ocean archipelago of the Canary Islands, and the area in which Mr Slater was last seen is full of steep cliffs and gorges.

The land is arid and dotted with cacti.

In his last phone call to his friend Ms Law shortly before his phone battery died, Mr Slater is said to have told her that he was bleeding and needed water.

Another friend of Mr Slater, Brad Hargreaves, later said in a television interview that Mr Slater had video called him just before the call to Ms Law, and had indicated he had slipped off the road he was walking.

Within days of Mr Slater’s disappearance, social media was awash with theories about what had happened to him, including suggestions of foul play.

The Guardia Civil has never suggested they believed any harm had come to Mr Slater by any other person or people.

But that did not do anything to quell the rampant speculation.

His family and friends said they had found themselves the victims of online trolls.

Rachel Hargreaves, the mother of Mr Slater’s friend Bradley Hargreaves, told the BBC she had received a friend request from a fake account using her late mother’s photo as its profile picture.

She said “things don’t normally get to me”, but that had affected her.

“We’re living the worst nightmare you can live and this does not help,” she said.

Mr Slater’s mother also made reference to the upset caused by the online frenzy around the case.

“There is a lot of negativity unfortunately and this is adding to the heartbreak of the unknown”, she said in an update on the GoFundMe page, set up to help pay for the search.