TENERIFE cops have pleaded for volunteers to take part in a large-scale search for Jay Slater – despite rejecting help from British police.
Authorities on the island last week insisted they had the resources they needed for the hunt.
Jay, from Lancashire, has been missing since last Monday and has not been seen or heard from in the 12 days since.
Now almost two weeks into the search Tenerife police have appealed for volunteers to help scour the mountainous terrain on the island where Jay was last known to be.
Officials say the huge sweeping search will take place tomorrow in Masca from 9am.
Police confirmed they are not looking for “general” unexperienced members of the public to join the search.
Instead, they are requesting the help of those who are experts in dealing with rocky terrain as well as professional volunteers such as firefighters.
Their cry for help comes despite them turning down help from their British counterparts as they insisted they had all the resources required.
Police in Tenerife said today: “The Guardia Civil prepares and coordinates a large search to find the young British man missing in the village of Masca.
“The collaboration of all those Volunteer Associations is requested: Civil Protection, Firefighters, etc., and even private volunteers who are experts in the abrupt search terrain.
“The massive search will be carried out on Saturday, 29 June from 9am.”
Jay’s distraught mum Debbie Duncan last week slammed police on the island for not letting cops from Lancashire Police fly out to help search for her son.
She said: “I know the Spanish police mean well, but the problem we are having is the language barrier, we just don’t seem to be getting told. I’m sure they are doing their best.
“They told me they had used dogs and drones and then they said Lancashire police had offered their resources but they turned it down, but I think that would have really helped.
“I would feel happier if our people were over helping. It’s just so difficult not knowing where he is, the area and the terrain is rough, but the police were saying that now there are too many people up there and it could interfere with their investigation.”
On Tuesday, cops on the island were forced to draft in reinforcements with specialist sniffer dog teams.
It comes as…
Search dog units trained specially to comb large areas were in from Madrid some 1,300 miles away.
It was hoped the specially-trained hounds would found clues on Jay;s whereabouts.
After going to a rave that finished in the early hours of June 17, Jay headed to Masca with two British men he had met that night.
The 19-year-old shared a final Snapchat from their Airbnb of a hand holding a cigarette at 7.30am.
Jay then tried to make his way back to his holiday accommodation – an 11-hour walk away.
But at around 8.50am he made a final frantic call to friend Lucy, telling her he was lost in the “middle of nowhere” with no water and had just one per cent battery on his phone.
Since then, a mammoth search operation involving drones, sniffer dogs and helicopters has been working tirelessly to find any trace of Jay.
Rescue crews have been focussing much of their search on a 2,000ft ravine in the desolate Rural de Teno park.
They have now shifted their focus to caves near Los Carrizales – around an hour and a half on foot from the Airbnb Jay went to with two men.
by Katie Davis
TENERIFE cops were warned over a soaring number of disappearances before Jay Slater vanished.
The Sun can reveal authorities were told two years ago their resources were insufficient and were urged to improve them after repeated failures.
Jay, 19, is one of 11 people who have gone missing in Tenerife in just six months.
The coordinator of SOS Disappeared in Tenerife, Santiago Carlos Martín, told how “families feel abandoned” during hunts for their loved ones.
Mr Martín, who leads a group of around 40 volunteers, said: “There are many who have disappeared in the Canary Islands and the number has increased since the pandemic.”
He and his team have called for more multidisciplinary teams to be on standby to help with searches.
These would include not only the police, but emergency workers, health experts, psychologists and other professionals who could form a more accurate picture of why someone might have gone missing.
Between 2020 and 2023, official data from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior reveals at least 460 adults went missing in that period on the Canary Islands from a population of just 2.2million.
It has the second-highest number of missing people in the whole of Spain.
And that was only behind Span’s biggest region of Andalucia which had 755 missing people in the same period from a population four times larger of 8.5million.
Speaking in 2022 Mr Martin said: “There are many disappeared in the Canary Islands and the number has increased after the pandemic.
“We are at the head of the country, and we are not clear why.
“Perhaps the orography or the social structure have an influence, but we don’t know.”
The most pressing issue, according to Mr Martin, is geolocation.
He said: “One of the big problems is that the police often take time to geolocate the telephone numbers of the disappeared person due to bureaucratic procedures that act as a barrier.
“The time in a disappearance is important and the process is too complex, which wastes many days.
“And they are vulnerable people: elderly, minors, with cognitive problems, mental health or with a history of suicide.”
Los Carrizales is a small hamlet not far from Masca in the Teno mountains.
But police sources have warned that it is “very unlikely Jay has survived if he got lost in the mountains”.
Yet authorities have said there are no plans to put a stop to the search yet, despite no signs of Jay.
The police’s call for help comes as amateur TikTok sleuths have taken it upon themselves to try and search for Jay.
Armed with their cameras and hiking boots, they have recorded themselves trekking through the mountainous scrubland Jay was last known to be in.
Among them are British TikTok vloggers Andrew Knight and Paul Arnott, who have been sharing clips with the legions of followers.
Paul, from Bedfordshire, claimed in his latest video that he has been welcomed by police in Tenerife.
But former cop Charlie Hedges told The Sun about the risks of online sleuths and amateur detectives trying to crack the case.
He urged the public not to take it upon themselves to help the search as he noted despite their best intentions they may end up causing more trouble.
