Jay Slater’s father has said he is in a “living hell” as the search for the missing teenager enters its second week.
Warren Slater has been putting up missing posters in the town of Santiago del Teide, Tenerife, as he appealed for anyone who had seen his 19-year-old son to come forward.
Speaking in Tenerife on Monday, he said: “I just want him to be found, simple. I just want my son back, end of. What more is there, it’s been a week now, a week of nothing, so somebody somewhere must have found out something. Somebody.
“It is a living hell. Unless you’re going through it, you cannot explain.”
The search for the Lancashire teenager, now in its eighth day, has focused on the mountain village of Masca, near to where his phone last pinged.
His family has released a CCTV image captured last Monday evening of a figure walking through Santiago del Teide, a town a few miles away.
Although blurry, they believe it could be Mr Slater, which would mean he was alive 10 hours after he was last heard from. The Guardia Civil has not confirmed the sighting but told The Telegraph that “nothing has been ruled out”.
Mr Slater was last heard from on Monday morning when he phoned a friend and said “he was lost in the mountains and desperately thirsty”.
He had earlier met two men at a music festival on the Spanish island and followed them back to their cottage.
His father said: “Please, please, please – if anybody knows anything, just come forward and help us. I don’t know if anything untoward has happened to Jay. One minute he is here, next minute he’s disappeared.
“Second, I don’t believe he’s still on that mountain. The police have put every effort into finding him. It’s bleak and barren. The authorities have done everything they can in the search – everybody is up there looking for him.”
Mr Slater travelled to Tenerife with two friends to attend the NRG music festival on Sunday June 16. He left the festival between 3am and 6am in the car of the two other British men he had met that night.
At 7.30am he posted a picture on Snapchat showing him smoking a cigarette at the doorway of a cottage in Parque Rural de Teno, more than 30 miles from where the festival was held to the south of the island.
At around 8am Ofelia Medina Hernandez, the owner of the two-bedroom Airbnb property to which he had travelled, came across the teenager standing at a nearby bus stop.
He asked when the next bus was to Los Cristianos, the resort area where he had been staying, and she said it was not for another two hours. Instead of waiting, Mr Slater decided to walk.
After setting off he rang his friend Lucy Law, who had joined him at the music festival, and said he was lost, thirsty, had one per cent charge left on his phone, and had cut his leg on a cactus. His phone died shortly after the call. Its last location was north of the cottage.
GoFundMe page
Jay’s mother Debbie Duncan, 55, thanked donors on Monday as a GoFundMe page called “Get Jay Slater home” had raised more than £34,000.
She wrote on the page: “We have not yet withdrawn any funds and are currently covering the expenses, such as the trip to Tenerife and accommodation, ourselves.
“The funds will remain on hold with GoFundMe until we post a further update on this page [on GoFundMe]. We are extremely worried and are doing everything we can to find Jay.
“Please continue to share our fundraiser far and wide. Your support means the world to us, and we are grateful for any help you can provide.”
Meanwhile, the construction company that employs Mr Slater said he was being misrepresented online, with conspiracy theories having been posted on a Facebook group. Some speculated that Mr Slater had been kidnapped, while others suggested he was hiding.
PH Build, which employs him as an apprentice bricklayer, said: “Jay has been with us since he left school, and is liked by all. He’s a valued member of our team and we stand by him.”
“The picture being painted of him is just not true. The fact is he’s a 19-year-old lad missing in a foreign country. He needs to be back home where he belongs. Come on Jay, we are all praying for you.”
