A private investigator says police officers in Tenerife ended their search for Jay Slater too abruptly.
Army reservist Juan García said 19-year-old Jay may still be alive and eating plants after disappearing on June 17.
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Apprentice bricklayer Jay, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was last heard from more than two weeks ago when he phoned a friend to say he was “lost in the middle of nowhere”.
He returned to a remote Airbnb with two British men in the northwest of the island in the early hours of June, before leaving in the morning.
After missing the bus, he began the 11-hour journey back to his vacation accommodation.
At around 8.50am he made one last frantic call to his friend Lucy, saying he was in the “middle of nowhere”, had no water and had just one per cent battery left on his phone.
This triggered a massive search involving drones, specialized sniffer dogs, helicopters and also police searching the ground on foot.
Much of the search focused on a 2,000-foot ravine in the desolate Teno Rural Park.
But less than two weeks after the search began, authorities called off the hunt — leaving Jay’s family “caught by surprise.”
However, search expert García believes that the police were too hasty in abandoning the operation.
He said The times: “Two weeks is too premature to end the search.
“[Slater] it could be alive somewhere – someone could drink rainwater and eat plants.
“The family should not lose hope.”
García, 53, helped with several search missions in the area and “talked directly to the family.”
He urged the family to use part of the £49,000 donated on a GoFundMe page to fund an independent search for Jay.
Detectives have promised to continue investigating and will look into any new allegations or information that comes to light.
But the decision to drastically halt the search was the “nightmare scenario” Jay’s family was “fearing,” a source close to them revealed.
Around 30 police, firefighters and rescue workers took to the mountains in Masca – along with a handful of volunteers – on Saturday for a “final push”.
But the search, which focused on Jay’s last known location, failed to find any trace of the teenager.
A source in the UK, who has been in regular contact with the family, told The Sun: “Jay’s family knew the search would eventually come to an end. They understand this.
“But it was a nightmare scenario that they didn’t want to think about. And it wasn’t something they thought wouldn’t happen immediately.
“So the decision made after just two weeks left them perplexed and devastated.”
On Monday, Jay’s parents, Debbie and Warren, pleaded with officers not to give up on their son during a difficult meeting.
Jay’s loved ones have vowed to continue searching the island’s Teno Rural Park in hopes of finding him.
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Dad Warren, who yesterday searched a narrow ravine near the village of Masca where Jay was last seen, said police are not telling the family much about the investigation.
He added that he was “frustrated” and “angry” that more was not done to find his son.
Warren told The Sun: “I’m past sadness and I’m angry, if that makes any sense. I’m angry because nothing happened.”
The lack of information led Warren to become a detective.
“The police here are carrying out their own investigations. In fact, they are not telling us anything, they are not telling you anything, we are in the dark,” he said.
“Everything I’m doing is a little Columbus. I mean, he could be here, you never know, but as a father I don’t want him to be.”
It turns out that one of the Brits who took Jay back to Airbnb claims he only did so because “all his friends abandoned him.”
Ayub Qassim, 31, rented the £40-a-night holiday rental in north-west Tenerife under a different surname.
Qassim, who was jailed nine years ago for masterminding an operation to flood Wales with class A drugs, said: “I let the old man stay at my house because he had nowhere else to go.
“All his friends abandoned him.
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“I know Jay, through friends, I’m not going to bring someone back to my house if I don’t know him.
“I’m doing the old man a favor and now my face is all over the news. It’s a little crazy. I didn’t even do anything.”
Jay’s father Warren, however, questioned why his teenage son ended up going on holiday with “two grown men”.
Warren, 58, believes the investigation into her son’s whereabouts should focus on Airbnb.
He told The Sun: “My only question is, and this is where you start the investigation, why did two grown men take a young boy down a valley to an inn?
“Why? Why? You need to ask them why and then go from there.”
Warren’s questions come after a TV investigator helping the family claimed Jay left the Airbnb feeling “scared.”
Former detective Mark Williams-Thomas claims the boy did not want to return for the holiday, despite needing water and having a low battery on his phone.
He told his friends he “couldn’t do it” and that he was already a 30-minute walk away.
Mark also claimed that Jay admitted to stealing an expensive Rolex in a Snapchat to friends while in a car on the way to Airbnb.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
