Jay Slater search day eleven: The unanswered questions around his disappearance as hunt continues

Jay flew from Lancashire to the Canary Islands to attend the New Generation Rave (NGR) music festival with his friends but disappeared after travelling to a remote Airbnb with two men on the evening of Sunday, June 16.

His mother and father, Debbie Duncan and Warren Slater, travelled to Tenerife to help search for their missing son.

Search teams are scouring the area with police deploying helicopters, drones and sniffer dogs to aid the search.

On Wednesday, Jay's mother confirmed that the family would be taking money out of a GoFundMe set up to raise money to help get Jay home.

Debbie said money from the GoFundMe, which has reached over £36,615, will be used to "support the mountain rescue teams who are tirelessly searching for Jay" and "to cover accommodation and food expenses" for the family as they continue their search in Tenerife.

Where is Jay Slater?

Jay was last heard from at 8:15 am on Monday, June 17 after he phoned his friend Lucy Law to say that he was lost, dehydrated and had a low battery on his phone.

After attending the NGR music festival in Playa de las Americas the night before, the teenager travelled alone with two men he had met to a national park in northwest Tenerife.

At about 7:30 am Jay posted a photograph on Snapchat showing him at the doorway of a property tagged with the location Parque Rural de Teno.

The last location recorded on Jay's phone was at 8:50 am in the Rural de Teno National Park, several hundred feet above the small village of Masca, and there has been no further trace of him since.

The park is about a 40-minute drive from where Jay and his friends were staying.

Spanish police are investigating a possible sighting of the teenager in the town of Santiago del Tiede, after CCTV footage showed a grainy figure of a young man crossing the road last Monday evening.

Around the town, posters of Jay with a Spanish description have been pinned up by his father.

Since his disappearance, a group of online sleuths have been spreading conspiracy theories online but the family fear the online "noise" could hamper the investigation.

Debbie described the online speculation as "horrible" and said Spanish police had told her it could hinder the investigation as conspiracy theorists have travelled to Masca in the days following his disappearance.

It comes as the local mayor of the town of Santiago del Teide, Emilio Jose Navarro, said Spanish police have spoken to locals who believe they may have seen Jay watching Euro 2024 matches after he last contacted friends.

Why did Jay attempt to walk an 11-hour journey instead of taking the bus?

According to his friend Lucy, Jay missed his bus back and decided to walk the 10-hour distance to Los Cristianos.

A woman named Ofelia Medina Hernandez, whose brother owns the cottage where the men were staying said that Jay had asked her about bus times.

She said: “I held up my fingers on my hands to say 10 am as he didn’t understand me then I went home briefly before driving up the mountain to Buenavista del Norte, but this time I saw him walking on the road out of the village.

“It was no more than ten or fifteen minutes after I had spoken to him and he was about a kilometre from the house. I drove past him and that’s the last I saw him.”

Who were the men Jay was spotted with?

Jay met two men, believed to be British, during the festival and decided to return to their Airbnb while his friends went home.

The two men were questioned briefly by Spanish police before flying back to the UK. Jay's friend Lucy said that she was able to track down the Airbnb where he had been staying and speak to the men who were there.

Lucy said: "They seemed startled and surprised that I had found them, and I asked them where Jay was.

"They said he had gone out to try and look for cigarettes and then come back and said he was leaving to try and get a bus back into town.

"They just seemed shocked that I had managed to find them and I know the police have spoken to them but I've since found out they have left the country. They need to be spoken to properly."

Since returning to the UK, British police have said they have no intention of speaking to the two men despite growing concerns over Jay.

Could Jay have been kidnapped?

Both Jay's mother and father have questioned the possibility that Jay was taken on the Spanish Island.

Slater’s father told the Manchester Evening News: “You think, has somebody got him? Because no matter if you were drunk or whatever, you don't go off that road up there.

“I knew right from when I went up there that he wouldn't have gone [off that road]. He isn't stupid. When I saw the police I asked them, seriously, 'would you go off that road?' and I think it woke them up a bit.

“It started out as it being a lad who had gone walking and got lost, or that he may have fallen. But it doesn't make sense. Nobody would walk off that road. Why would he have gone uphill?”

Jay's mother Debbie said that she doesn't "know what to think" about her son's disappearance.

She said: "I'm all over the place and I'm trying to keep positive, has somebody taken him? Is he panicked and lost in the mountains? I just don't know, that's why if anyone has any information please just tell us."

The Spanish police have never said this is a line of enquiry and are still treating him as a missing person.