Jay Slater case ‘doesn’t add up’ ex-Met officer says as he urges Spanish police to let British force help
Former Met Police officer Graham Wettone warns of “inconsistencies” and urges police to look at days before 19-year-old’s disappearance
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Spanish police have been urged to accept help from British investigators in the hunt for Jay Slater in Tenerife, as a former police officer warned: “Things just don’t add up.”
Policing expert Graham Wettone, who was in the Metropolitan Police for 30 years, said he has been pouring over the evidence in the hunt for the missing 19-year-old. He believes there were too many “inconsistencies” in the mystery of his disappearance and called for detectives to look more closely at the days before he vanished.
The apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, vanished in Tenerife on the morning of 17 June after attending a dance music festival. He has not been seen since he was driven to an isolated AirBnB by two Britons where he spent the night following an after party in the Playa de las Americas resort.
He is thought to have tried to make his way back to his holiday accommodation - an 11-hour walk away. But at around 8.50am he made a desperate call to his friend Lucy saying he was lost in the “middle of nowhere” and had just one per cent battery on his phone.
Helicopters, drones and dogs have since been combing the island for clues amid fears he may have wandered into the mountains, but the Spanish Guardia Civil announced they were calling off the search on Sunday.
However, Mr Wettone thinks police should take another look at the case and consider accepting an offer of help from Lancashire Police, where Jay lives.
The former police officer told Mail Online: “There are so many inconsistencies in what I am seeing and reading. I think the Spanish police need to take a step back and think ‘Why did he go missing where he did and in what circumstances?’
“They seem to be focusing primarily on the fact that they were told he wandered off into the mountain, but we are now [three] weeks in, and nothing has been found up there. I would even go back further to the days leading up to his disappearance, have they checked his bank accounts for anything untoward in the hours before he went missing.
“Were there any patterns forming that would point to him going wandering off but the fact he is said to have done that just doesn’t square with me. Was there anything sinister and untoward there, that would have made him go off with these two men, is there anything in his past that needs looking at more fully.”
He said that is where assistance from Lancashire police would have been “vital”, as they have the resources to carefully examine his background.
Spanish police spoke to the two men said to have rented the AirBnB where the 19-year-old spent the night but they were later ruled “not relevant” to the case, according to reports.
Mr Slater’s heartbroken family is understood to be determined to continue hunting for him after a Guardia Civil spokesperson revealed on Sunday that the search operation was over, although the case remains open.
On Friday, Mr Slater‘s friend Brad Hargreaves told ITV’s This Morning he had been on a video call with him before his disappearance when he heard him go off the road.
He said: “He was on the phone walking down a road and he’d gone over a little bit - not a big drop - but a tiny little drop and he was going down, and he said ‘I’ll ring ya back, I’ll ring ya back’ because I think someone else was ringing him.”
He confirmed he could see his friend’s feet “sliding” down the hill and could hear he was walking on gravel.
But Mr Hargreaves said he and his friend were both laughing at that point.
He added: “He didn’t seem concerned on the phone until we knew how far away he was.”
The last person to speak to Mr Slater was his friend Lucy Law. She said Mr Slater told her in a frantic phone call before he went missing that he was “lost in the mountains, he wasn’t aware of his surroundings, he desperately needed a drink and his phone was on 1%”.
A GoFundMe appeal Get Jay Slater Home was set up by Ms Law and had raised more than £43,000 as the police search came to an end.
Mr Slater‘s mother, Debbie Duncan, travelled to the island as the search took place.
She said the money raised online would be used to support mountain rescue teams, and to cover her own accommodation and food costs.