THE search for Jay Slater has entered its fourth week with his family still scouring the Tenerife mountains for any trace of the Brit teen.
Spanish cops have now halted their own search with fresh “leads” throwing up more riddles each day over what happened to the missing 19-year-old.
Jay hasn’t been seen or heard from since June 17 after he left a remote Airbnb in the Masca region by himself.
After a night of partying on the island the apprentice bricklayer went to stay with two British men he had met during the packed NRG festival.
One of the men – convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim – says Jay left the house alive.
The missing teen tried to make his way back to his holiday apartment which was an 11-hour walk away – before making a desperate phone call to pal Lucy Law saying he was lost.
In the three weeks since his disappearance a string of questions have been left unanswered with investigators, cops and Jay’s family all seeking answers.
Since he first vanished, officials have been left puzzled over why Jay chose to go back to the Airbnb with two random men instead of returning to his apartment in Los Cristianos.
His two pals he arrived in Tenerife with, Lucy Law and Brad Hargreaves, were staying with him and had returned home earlier on the night of June 16.
The missing Brit was then seen leaving the Papagayo nightclub with the older men hours later in a car heading to the Airbnb.
A new theory has suggested he lost the key to his room leading to him looking for a new place to stay on his night out.
Messages from Qassim, 31, seen by The Sun, show that Jay had complained to him about losing his key as they partied.
Jay’s family have previously blasted any claims that he didn’t return to his apartment because of the keys saying “he’s not stupid”.
His uncle Glen Duncan, told The Sun: “The fact he has come out and said all his mates have left him and he had nowhere to go, he was 10 minutes from his apartment in Los Cristianos.
“He’s not stupid. If he didn’t have a room key he could have gone to reception for a replacement.”
Jay’s dad Warren, 58, has also questioned why his teenage son ended up at a remote home with “two grown men”.
Mark Williams-Thomas – who has been working on the case for weeks – has claimed the Brit was offered a phone charger in the hours before he vanished but refused to use it.
Ex-detective Mark spoke to Qassim and now says he has pieced together a clear picture of the moments before Jay left the Airbnb.
He retold a version of events which saw the three men leave the rave and drive back to the holiday let together.
After arriving at the accommodation, Jay apparently asked Qassim for a phone charger and a cigarette.
The final Snapchat taken from the teen showed him sitting outside the Airbnb with a blanket as he smoked.
But according to Qassim, Jay likely didn’t use the charger.
Mark revealed in a video update on Sunday: “Jay asked for a cigarette and Ayub said, I’ve got some camel cigarettes and put one on the side.
“Jay then asked for a phone charger. He [Ayub] said, go into my friend’s room. He’s asleep.
“Take his charger and you can put your phone on charge.”
There was no charging point in the living room, supposedly where Jay crashed for the night leading Qassim to speculate the teen left with little battery.
It is not clear whether Jay did use the charger in the end as he told Lucy in a panicked phone call just hours later he only had one per cent before it died.
Mark also revealed that Jay turned down an offer of a lift back to Los Cristianos from Qassim the morning he vaished.
Qassim, who rented out the holiday home, claims Jay was hungry and wanted to go home so he could “get a scran” with him planning on catching a bus.
The 19-year-old allegedly said: “I’m hungry. I need to get a scran. And the woman told me I can get a bus every 10 minutes to Los Cristianos.”
Mark says that Qassim told him “no bus is coming”, and offered to drive him after taking a nap, but the teen left anyway.
It has since been claimed by Mark that Jay left in a panic and was “scared” to return.
Jay called pal Lucy to say he had missed the bus home and was going to try and walk the treacherous 11-hour journey alone, minutes after he walked out the home.
The two had a panicked call during the first few hours of his walk with Jay saying he was lost and thirsty, his phone was about to die and that he’d been cut by a cactus.
She then claims she went to the Airbnb in the days after her friend’s disappearance and said the bus stop “was visible from the front door”.
A friend of Jay allegedly called Qassim, dubbed “Johnny Vegas“, hours after the teen left the Airbnb in a rush.
Qassim, who The Sun revealed was jailed for nine years in 2015, claims he received a panicked call about Jay being “in a ditch somewhere”.
Mark – who is out in Tenerife – shared the bombshell video update on his X account.
“He [Ayub] then says he gets a call from a friend of Jay’s who says that he’s in a ditch somewhere and he’s been cut by a cactus,” Mark added.
The identity of the friend has not released.
Qassim has been questioned by cops in Spain already with them dubbing him “not relevant” to the case.
He has since flown back to the UK.
The convicted criminal, who became a key witness, hit out at speculation online over his involvement and insists he has “nothing to hide”.
Many of Jay’s family flew out to Tenerife to help in the search for the missing teen.
Since cops called off the search on Sunday 30, the family took matters into their own hands as they continue to scour the mountains.
Desperate dad Warren, 58, has remained hopeful that they will find Jay but has been vocal of the family’s anguish.
He blasted the entire search operation as he claimed “everything stinks” amid fears other people are involved in his son’s disappearance.
“It’s just a riddle and I don’t know the outcome,” Warren added.
“We’re going round and round in circles.”
He continued telling the Manchester Evening News: “From the bnb, he’s a fit lad, 25 minutes you can get to the top, to where the cafe is. If he’s followed the road and been where we’ve been today, it’s took him an hour and a half.
“Dozens of cars would have gone past him. We got here at 9am and the 10am bus passed us. And it would have passed him. I’ve been up here three weeks and I’ve never seen as many cars.”
Jay’s uncle Glen Duncan has also angrily hit out at the police investigation – saying he wished he could “burst into the police station” amid fears a “third party” could have been involved.
Yesterday, Warren warned it would take “an army 10 years” to search the whole area as he pleaded with Interpol and British cops to help.
Warren – joined by Glen and older brother Zak – are now searching a town in Tenerife where the teen was allegedly spotted nine hours after he disappeared.
They focused their efforts in the town of Santiago del Teide which made headlines several weeks ago when apparent CCTV footage caught Jay wandering across the road.
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
