JAY SLATER’S family are now searching a town in Tenerife where the teen was allegedly spotted nine hours after he disappeared.
The missing teen’s dad and brother scoured the mountainous village of Santiago del Teide on Monday – after cops called off their search.
Jay, a 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldthistle, Lancashire, disappeared on the holiday island three weeks ago.
After police, firefighters, volunteers and mountain rescue spent a fortnight looking for him, they axed the active search.
Now his devastated family, who flew out to Tenerife the week he vanished, are continuing the hunt themselves.
Yesterday they focused their efforts in the town of Santiago del Teide which made headlines several weeks ago, the Independent reports.
Jay’s mum Debbie Duncan told press on Saturday June 22 that a witness went to cops and claimed to have seen Jay in the village the day he disappeared.
They apparently said he was with a pair of men sitting on a bench outside a church, 3.5 miles away from his last known location.
The mysterious sighting raised questions as the witness placed Jay there at 6pm, some nine hours after he was last heard from on Monday morning.
On Wednesday June 26 The Sun revealed exclusive CCTV footage that showed police scouring the town.
An officer with a flashlight and another man were seen combing the area for clues, at one point examining a red container.
The pair then walks towards the town hall, before heading back over to the church and waiting near the road.
Previous grainy footage taken in the same spot showed a figure which Jay’s family suggested could be him after the Santiago sighting.
There was no official update from police, or more information from Debbie on the witness’ claims.
A heartbroken Debbie said at the time that she feared “something untoward” has happened to the teen.
It comes as Jay’s worried dad, Warren Slater, has begged the British police to get involved in search efforts for his missing son.
He warned it would take “an army 10 years” to search the vast mountainous area where Jay vanished.
Speaking to The Sun Warren said: “As a family, we need to ask the British authorities to help. He’s a British citizen. Get Interpol involved.
“At the moment, 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.
“It’ll take an army 10 years to cover all this. I’d employ a team of Gurkhas.”
He also called on British cops to interview Ayub Qassim, 31 – a convicted drug dealer who was among the last people to see Jay before he vanished.
Jay headed back to an Airbnb rented by Qassim, also known as ‘Johnny Vegas’, with him and a second unnamed man.
Qassim, who The Sun revealed was jailed for nine years in 2015, previously insisted: “Jay came to the house alive, and he left the house alive.”
The convicted criminal has hit out at speculation over his involvement in the mystery case and insists he has “nothing to hide”.
Qassim, who booked the Airbnb under the surname Abdul, and his friend spoke to Spanish police after Jay vanished.
Officials deemed them “irrelevant” to the ongoing investigation and let them fly home to the UK the very next day.
There have been mounting calls for police to speak to them again amid the ongoing mystery of Jay’s disappearance.
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
Monday July 8 marks three weeks since Jay Slater, a 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, vanished in Tenerife.
The apprentice bricklayer, who flew out to the popular holiday island for a rave festival with friends Lucy Law and Brad Page, has made headlines around the country.
On Sunday June 16 the three of them headed off to one of the events at Papagayo nightclub.
In the early hours of Monday 17 – Lucy and Brad were ready to head back to their hotel, but Jay wanted to keep partying.
It was then that he left the south of the island and headed to an Airbnb in the northwest with two British men.
The Sun revealed the identity of one of them – convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, who spent nine years behind bars in the UK.
For days it was thought that the second mystery man went by the name ‘Johnny Vegas’.
On Sunday former detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who is out in Tenerife investigating, said Qassim told him he is in fact the man behind the nickname ‘Johnny Vegas’.
We don’t yet know the identity of the second man – who remains a key part of the puzzle in Jay’s mysterious disappearance.
Qassim claims he drove Jay and the friend back to their accommodation and said they all went to sleep.
In the morning he offered to drive the teen back to the Los Cristianos resort after a nap, but Jay, hungry and tired, said he wanted to leave immediately.
Lucy, the last person to speak to Jay, claims she had a panicked call from him soon after he left the holiday let, telling her he was lost and thirsty, his phone was about to die and that he’d been cut by a cactus.
Jay had been seen by the owner of the Airbnb that morning wandering around near the Rural de Teno park – a mountainous region close-by.
He is believed to have been attempting the 11-hour trek back to his hotel, despite the alleged offer of a lift and more buses scheduled for the day.
It was there that his phone last pinged – and he hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
Mark Williams-Thomas has claimed he left the Airbnb quickly, and was “scared”.
Bizarrely, Qassim says he was woken up that morning by a phone call from an unnamed friend of Jay, saying he was “in a ditch” somewhere and had been “cut by a cactus”.
Jay’s friend Lucy claimed to have “tracked down” the two men in the Airbnb after he vanished – quizzing them on the morning of Jay’s disappearance.
Some reports have suggested Lucy knew the two men, although it is not clear how.
She has dubbed his disappearance “weird and suspicious”.
Both men were questioned by Spanish cops on June 17 but quickly deemed “irrelevant” to the investigation and cleared to fly back to the UK.
Police spent almost two weeks searching for Jay in the Tenerife mountains, scouring a 2,000ft ravine, before calling it off on Sunday June 30.
Jay’s family have repeatedly slammed the Spanish investigation into his bizarre disappearance.
His uncle, Glen Duncan, is convinced of “third party involvement”.
And the teen’s devastated dad, Warren Slater, says “everything stinks”
He told The Sun: “My starting position, I’ve said this from day one, ask the two men who’ve taken him – and then start from there.”
A number of unanswered questions remain, over why Jay would have travelled so far with two older men he didn’t know, why said men would have taken him in, and why he braved the Tenerife mountains with no phone battery, water or heat protection for a day-long walk.
