Jay Slater: Spanish Police criticised for 'overlooking basics' as mystery Airbnb man revealed

Jay Slater: Spanish Police criticised for 'overlooking basics' as mystery Airbnb man revealed

WATCH NOW: Missing persons expert Mike Neville on the search for Jay Slater

GB News
Georgia Pearce

By Georgia Pearce


Published: 03/07/2024

- 20:27

19-year-old Jay Slater went missing 16 days ago after going on holiday to Tenerife with his friends

Spanish police have been criticised for "overlooking basics" as one of the men who stayed at the Airbnb with missing teenager Jay Slater has been revealed.

The image, which was first revealed by the Daily Mail, shows a British man who goes by the name Ayub Abdul. He booked the holiday rental online for £40 per night and later hosted the missing teenager shortly before he disappeared.


In recent days, Spanish Police have been seen returning to the Airbnb in Tenerife with forensic teams, as their on the ground search in mountainous terrain was ceased last weekend.

Speaking to GB News, former head of the Lambeth Missing Persons Unit, Mike Neville, claimed the initial theory that the men who hosted Slater at the accommodation were "not part of the investigation", but in light of new developments "appears to have changed".

Airbnb, British man and Jay Slater

Jay Slater has been missing in Tenerife for 16 days

PA / Airbnb / X

Neville told host Martin Daubney: "There's all sorts of information coming out that Jay was allegedly involved in an incident involving a watch, all these strange things are coming forward.

"People are also coming forward five, 10, even 15 days after the event, which is very difficult when you're investigating it."

Noting the decision by investigators to return to the Airbnb, Martin highlighted that "maybe the answer was staring them in the face all along in that apartment", rather than the terrain where they believe Slater went off-road.

Neville responded: "Absolutely. And there are all sorts of other holiday makers who are attending the clubs and the raves who have left that island and gone back to UK. Where are they? They could be anywhere.

In criticism of the police, Neville claimed that the investigating officers should have used their "golden hour" of the "first 24 hours" to explore all possibilities, as well as the ground search, and not "gambled on it".

Sharing his own theory on the teenager's whereabouts, Neville told GB News: "In my view, the likelihood is that he probably has gone missing in the wooded area. But they need to look into these other avenues.

"The Spanish police are saying it's not a criminal investigation, it's a missing persons inquiry, but there's all these other things in the background that have got to be clarified to see. It's a very, very strange mystery and we can only hope that the lad is found and his parents get some kind of closure."

Martin weighed in on the Spanish police's handling of the investigation, and claimed many of the "basics have been overlooked" by the search teams.

Mike Neville

Mike Neville says Slater has 'probably got lost in the wooded areas' of Tenerife

GB News

Martin told Neville: "It just seems astonishing - if you were conducting a search party on the ground like this, surely you would just begin with the last known sightings, the last known locations and comb for evidence.

"Phones, CCTV, anything, before going right across the island and all the manpower and the time, the resources that takes. It just seems incredible that these basics were overlooked."

Neville agreed, adding: "It just seems like there's been one focus. We do know that his phone pinged at a certain place in the park, so the police did the right thing by searching that area and fanning out from where that tapping was .

"But in the background to this, since the very start, there's been all sorts of rumours and allegations of crime of some kind, and that doesn't seem to have been investigated."

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