Jay Slater’s best friend has broken her silence to share a new picture of the missing teenager nearly three weeks after he vanished in Tenerife.
Lucy Law posted a picture on social media of the apprentice bricklayer, 19, who was last seen at around 8am on June 17.
The photo showed Jay and Lucy sat together posing for a selfie and was posted along with a crying face and blue heart emoji.
Lucy was one of the last people to hear from Jay before his disappearance. They had been at a rave in Playa de las Americas together before Jay travelled back to a £40-a-night Airbnb cottage in the remote village of Masca with two older British men.
As he tried to walk the 11 hours back to his hotel, Jay called Lucy to say he was lost, in desperate need of some water and his phone battery was on 1 per cent.
Spanish police focused their search on the mountainous village and Rural de Teno National Park in north-west Tenerife where his phone last pinged.
But on June 30, the search and rescue mission was dramatically called off after nearly 14 days, leaving his desperate family ‘in the dark’.
Lucy Law posted this picture on social media of the missing teenager Jay Slater nearly three weeks after he vanished in Tenerife.
Lucy (pictured) was one of the last people to hear from Jay and had gone to a festival with him the night before he disappeared
Jay (right) is pictured alongside his mother Debbie and brother Zak (left) who flew out to Tenerife after his disappearance
Search crews are seen last week scouring the area where Jay is believed to have gone missing
Jay’s family have been advised to fund an independent search party after Tenerife’s Civil Guard ended their hunt for him ‘prematurely’.
Army reservist and private investigator Juan García, is among those advising Jay’s mother to access the £48,000 GoFundMe towards funding the private search.
Speaking to the Times, he said that ‘two weeks is too premature to end the search’.
‘[Slater] could be alive somewhere — someone can drink from rainwater and eat plants. The family should not give up hope,’ he said.
Jay had been attending a three day NRG festival which ended on Sunday, 16 June in Papagayo beach club in South Tenerife.
His friend Lucy- who had gone to the festival with him – said Jay had gone to stay with people he met after a night out.
She received a phone call from Jay at around 8am on Monday morning saying he’d missed his bus and was trying to walk back but was lost, needed a drink and only had 1% battery on his phone. The phone call then cut off.
The teenager’s phone died at around 8.50am, with his last known location registered in the remote Rural de Teno park, more than ten miles from the popular resort Guía de Isora.
Jay Slater, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, travelled to the Canary Islands for a musical festival with his friend Lucy and another friend last week
Jay’s final Snapchat shows the teenager laughing and smiling at around 8.35pm on the night before he went missing
Jay was reported missing at around 9am the same morning and police launched a mountain rescue.
Mountain rescue crews and sniffer dogs had been searching the mountainous area of north-west Tenerife for the 19-year-old up until this afternoon.
But suddenly police focus shifted to the tourist hotspots of Los Cristianos and Playa de Las Americas in south Tenerife, after a false sighting of him getting out of a taxi.
It later emerged the report was false and police, having wasted precious time in the blistering 27C heat, were forced to move attention back to their original site.
The 19-year-old had gone back to the remote cottage in the village of Masca with two British men in the early hours of Monday morning after a rave in Playa de las Americas on June 17.
Jay, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, left the £40-a-night two bedroom property called Casa Abuela Tina at 7.30am and posted two pictures from it on Snapchat.
Spanish police dramatically called off the search for Jay on Monday but said their investigation into his disappearance was ongoing.
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