Latest Jay Slater: Dad of missing teenager in Tenerife rages son's disappearance 'doesn't make sense' as search enters fourth week

Jay Slater's father said he is at a loss admitting he "can't understand" why his son would veer off the road into the treacherous valleys. The family have scoured approximately "80 per cent" of the Valley of Barranco de Juan Lopez, near the village of Masca in Tenerife, where Jay's mobile signal was last detected. 

Warren Slater, Jay's father, recounted how the path they followed abruptly ended at a cliff's edge, leaving him puzzled as to why Jay would choose such a route. Mr Slater said: "It doesn't make sense, he's either hid himself, but why would he hide himself? Or he's just ....? We've done the valley where his ping was, we've gone up the road to a vantage point, there's cliffs there and there's a valley and a village there."

"All I'm thinking is common sense, would you try and walk through there," he said. "Where we've been today you can see there's a hikers path with proper stones. We've gone straight down and you end up in the village. I'd go into the first building you see. An ideal spot for shelter is that little cave isn't it, get a bit of shade, you're hungover, get your head down in there. The police are convinced that's where his last ping were".

Speaking about the route on the road, he added: "From the bnb, he's a fit lad, 25 minutes you can get to the top, to where the cafe is. If he's followed the road and been where we've been today, it's took him an hour and a half. Dozens of cars would have gone past him.

“We got here at 9am and the 10am bus passed us. And it would have passed him. I've been up here three weeks and I've never seen as many cars."

Mr Slater has demanded more support from British authorities pointing out that Jay is a “British citizen” and they should get “Interpol involved”. On Monday (8 July) the family were spotted continuing their search for Jay in Santiago del Teide, indicating they are expanding their search efforts.

Jay, an apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, attended a rave in Tenerife with two British men and spent the night at an Airbnb in a remote village before disappearing. It was his first holiday abroad.

He was last heard from on the morning of Monday, June 17, as he tried to return to the tourist town of Los Cristianos, where he had been staying with friends Lucy Law and Brad Hargreaves. 

The Mirror reported last week that one of the last people to see Jay was a convicted drug dealer, and it has now been disclosed that Ayub Qassim, 31, who was jailed nine years ago for masterminding a scheme to flood Wales with Class A drugs, is the elusive 'Johnny Vegas' who drove the missing teenager to the isolated holiday rental. TV detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who travelled to Tenerife to assist in the search for missing teenager Jay Slater, posted on X, formerly Twitter, that he has “now spoken to one of the men that took Jay back to his holiday rental” and his investigation “has opened up an established criminal network with links to drugs , violent crime and thefts”.