Missing teenager Jay Slater "most likely fell" in the Masca area and ended up in "unchecked and unmarked ravines" in the area, it has been claimed.
Four weeks after the 19-year-old went missing on the island of Tenerife, police announced today that human remains had been found in Rural de Teno National Park.
Following the discovery, the Civil Guard said in a statement: "Officers of the Civil Guard belonging to the Mountain Rescue and Intervention Group (GREIM) have located this morning the dead body of a young man in the area of Masca, belonging to the municipality of Buenavista del Norte.
"All indications suggest that it could be the young British man who had been missing for 29 days, who may have died due to an accidental fall in the rough and inaccessible area where he was found."
Jay Slater has been missing in Tenerife for 29 days after travelling to the island for a music festival with friends
X / Reuters
Speaking to GB News, Journalist Clio O'Flynn claimed that the area where Slater was reportedly trying to walk through would "immediately put himself in danger", as there are "unmarked and unchecked cracks in the land" where the teenager may have fallen into.
O'Flynn explained: "I think this will, in the minds of many, confirm what they did sadly think from quite early on in this investigation, that the teenager had quite likely fallen around the Masca area.
"Once you go beyond the roads and paths of mascot, if you stray off the path, you are immediately putting yourself in danger of falling down unchecked and on signposted ravines and gulfs and cracks in the land."
Stressing that the remains found are not yet confirmed to be the missing teenager, O'Flynn added that we will "have to wait for the results of the autopsy", but the "assumptions are that this is what has happened".
Spanish police said the body was found in an 'inaccessible area' near to where Slater vanished
Reuters
Noting the search efforts of the Guardia Civil, volunteers and the Spanish Police, O'Flynn claimed that they would have wanted to conduct the search "out of the media spotlight" and "away from scrutiny", following the rife media attention the case received.
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O'Flynn told host Martin Daubney: "It doesn't surprise me that they would have to continue to search in some form in secret, because the Spanish police would not be very happy with a media spotlight on them.
"They are happier to work outside of that kind of media scrutiny that perhaps many of the police forces are used to."
Discussing the latest development in which a body has been found in the area where Slater went missing, O'Flynn suggested that there may be a "media ban" on the investigation going forward.
She told GB News: "If a body is found or a suspect is arrested in a murder inquiry, which of course this is not, the police can immediately clamp down a media ban on any coverage of the event. And they prefer to work in that way."
O'Flynn says Spanish Police may impose a 'media ban' on the investigation now that a body has been found
GB News
Analysing how the Spanish Police have operated in comparison with British Police, O'Flynn claimed that going forward with future investigations, the authorities will "not suddenly start holding daily press briefings" because of what happened to Slater.
O'Flynn said: "They won't suddenly be more open with the press because of what has happened here. They will review the case, I'm sure they will.
"But they will also feel that if in fact it is the body of Jay Slater, that their method of continuing in private for the last two weeks will have to an extent been justified, because they did want to continue the search in a discreet way.
"And they may feel that their mode of operation here in the Canary Islands has for them been justified."
