'Nothing like this has ever happened here' - tour guide speaks out on Jay Slater search in Tenerife as it enters second week

A Tenerife tour guide has spoken out about the ‘strange’ disappearance of Jay Slater and said ‘nothing like this has ever happened here’.

The missing teenager, from Oswaldtwistle, was last in contact on Monday (June 17) in the Rural de Teno park, located in the north west of the island. He reportedly called his friend Lucy from the mountainous and rural village of Masca, explaining that he was lost and his mobile was down to just one percent battery.

His last known whereabouts were in a vast area about half a mile north from the Airbnb rental where he is believed to have stayed with two men he met at the NRG music festival. Over the past week, a massive search operation involving police, fire crews and mountain rescue teams, utilising drones, helicopters and sniffer dogs, has been launched in the desperate bid to locate him.

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Jay's family has stated that police are now investigating a potential, but unconfirmed, further sighting of Jay, seen walking through a church square in the remote village of Santiago del Teide. CCTV images, exclusively revealed by the M.E.N, seem to show a man strolling through the village square around 6pm on Monday.

Jay's family say police are conducting CCTV enquiries but this has not been confirmed by the Civil Guard. Angel, a Travel Tenerife tour guide from Santa Cruz who regularly takes tourists to the Masca ravine, today told the M.E.N: "I know they [police] are looking for him in the mountains but we don't know anything else. It's not in the Spanish media but it is here in the Canaries.

"In the south of Tenerife, it is huge, there are tourists from everywhere. Sometimes people disappear for one day, two days, there's drinking and drugs, if they're partying for example, but up here, nothing like this has happened before.

"For many days, lost in the middle of the mountains.. no, never, never. People are asking what was he doing in the mountains at 8 o'clock in the morning? It's so strange, after the disco you wouldn't finish a party in the mountains. It's very dangerous.

"Masca is very famous, people go hiking every day and police have to rescue people, but nobody has disappeared up here in the north."

A number of missing posters with images of Jay have been plastered on shop fronts around the village. On Sunday, Jay's heartbroken dad Warren, who was handing out leaflets to passers-by, said his son's disappearance "doesn't make sense" as he urged anyone with information to contact the police.

A local shop owner told the M.E.N that the mountainous area where Jay was said to be walking was "extremely dangerous". She said police had not been asking local businesses any questions about the reported sighting.

"For me, I feel bad. Because, he's a young guy and what happened, shouldn't have happened.

"He should have been a little more aware of the fact that you can't go [on that walk] alone."

On Monday, Jay's dad Warren along with other family visited the village of Santiago del Teide once again with posters to put up around the area. A number of police cars were seen parked at the bottom of the village, and appeared to be conducting enquiries and asking local business owners questions in relation to his disappearance.