Spanish police have issued a new theory in the search for missing teen Jay Slater.
A source close to the case told the Mirror that investigators are still hoping to find the 19-year-old alive and are not working on the basis he was “missing feared dead”.
The 19-year-old Brit, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, went missing three weeks ago on June 17 after attending the NRG festival in Playa de las Americas, Tenerife.
A spokesman for the Civil Guard said: “The investigation is ongoing and several lines of inquiry are being pursued.”
The search for the apprentice bricklayer has now been concentrated around in the mountains near Santiago del Teidi, but Jay’s dad Warren said they had widened the hunt from the Valley of Barranco de Juan Lopez, where Jay’s phone last pinged, to the neighbouring Los Carrizales valley.
He revealed how he and Jay’s brother Zak had been on “two wild goose chases” to abandoned buildings when they hoped the missing teen could be.
Jay vanished after he was last seen leaving an Airbnb close to the village of Masca, having been on holiday with friends Lucy, 18, and Brad Hargreaves, 19.
He had left an event at the Papagayo nightclub in Playa de las Americas with two British men. They are believed to have gone to the Airbnb before the disappearance.
Warren said the family had still heard nothing from the Spanish police over the past few days – and they would like British officers to interview the two men who took Jay to the Airbnb. “We need to, as a full family, do a proper press conference and ask the British authorities to help. He’s a British citizen. Get Interpol involved,” he said.
“It’s just us. I haven’t got a team. We need a team to come over here and find out for us what the police are doing and what we need to do. Our hands are tied over here, we need experts. How long can you stay here for? It’ll take an army 10 years to cover all this. I’d employ a team of Gurkhas.”
Warren said he can’t fathom why anyone would decide to walk through the trecherous mountains.
“All I’m thinking is common sense, would you try and walk through there. 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,” he said.
A search by the Spanish authorities ended last weekend after 14 days. Lancashire Police had offered to join the search, but the Civil Guard denied them.