Jay Slater missing: Tenerife cops were warned over number of disappearances before teen vanished

A missing persons expert issued an eerie Tenerife warning before Jay Slater vanished, it has emerged.

The Oswaldtwistle teenager, who was on his first holiday abroad with friends, has been missing on the Spanish island for 12 days. A major search operation remains ongoing and police are still determined to find the apprentice bricklayer.

It comes after an expert had previously raised alarms months before the 19-year-old's disappearance about the number of people who go missing in the holiday hotspot and are never found. Jay's night out was prolonged when he met two British men during his trip, leading to them all heading back to their Airbnb rental, situated just outside the village of Masca on the mountainside in the Rural de Teno National Park.

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The last sighting of Jay was in a secluded spot near the Mirador La Cruz de Hilda cafe, which is an epic 11-hour trek from where he was staying with friends in the south of the island. According to reports, Jay is just one of 11 people who have disappeared in Tenerife in the past six months.

The Sun reports that local police were told two years ago that their resources were insufficient. SOS Disappeared in Tenerife coordinator, Santiago Carlos Martín, said that "families feel abandoned" during hunts for their loved ones.

"Mr Martín, who leads a group of around 40 volunteers, told The Sun: "There are many who have disappeared in the Canary Islands and the number has increased since the pandemic."

The expert and his team have called for larger multidisciplinary teams to be on standby to help local police with searches, including teams such as health experts, psychologists and other professionals, who Mr Martín suggests would help provide more of an accurate picture as to why someone may have vanished.

Official data from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior states that between 2020 and 2023, at least 460 adults went missing in the Canary Islands, from a population of just 2.2million. Tenerife has the second-highest number of missing people in the whole of Spain, following Andalucia, which has a population four times larger at 8.5million.

Speaking in 2022, Mr Martin warned: "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 national president of SOS Disappeared, Joaquín Amills, also commented: "There are fewer resources here and to change that we all have to work together." Meanwhile, locals in the village of Masca have also noted similar disappearances in the area, usually involving hikers who get lost.

Speaking to The Independent, one woman, identified only by her first name, Anita, said: "We often have hikers go missing, every summer it is the same. Police come for a week and search and then they go – sometimes it can take months for a body to be found as the mountains are too difficult to search.

"People have said there was a sighting of him here, but no one knows anything – his family came here but there’s nothing to show he is here, as far as I know, no shop or cafe has seen him." It has been reported that Jay is "unlikely" to be found alive if he got lost in the treacherous Tenerife mountains.

Spanish cops have vowed not to give up their major operation, which has included a scan of remote terrain, with helicopters and sniffer dogs deployed. On Wednesday, the force released footage showing officers moving on foot in a mountainous area of the island.