Video shows the “inaccessible” mountain area where police have recovered a body in the search for missing teenager Jay Slater.
The body was found by members of a mountain rescue team from the Spanish Civil Guard, near the village of Masca on the Spanish holiday island of Tenerife on Monday.
It has not been formally identified but was found with the missing 19-year-old’s clothes and possessions, near to his last known location.
Police say they believe Mr Slater “could have suffered an accident [or] fall in the inaccessible area where he was found.”
The Spanish Civil Guard (Guardia Civil) has released footage that shows the rugged, remote area where the body was found.
It shows rescuers climbing rock faces and hacking their way through brambles and scrub, as they carried out the search.
Part of the clip shows two members of the search team being winched out of the area by helicopter, after the body had been found and recovered.
Mark Williams-Thomas, a former British police officer turned investigative reporter, who helped search for Mr Slater in Tenerife, said on X: “I have now seen video of the search team of the location where Jay Slater was found and it is difficult for people to perhaps understand how dangerous it is.
“A wrong foot placed, or a slip would most likely be fatal - hence why so difficult to search that area.”
Mr Slater disappeared on Tenerife on June 17, sparking a major weeks-long search in the mountainous area of the Rural de Teno Park.
The search for the apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was initially wide-scale, involving helicopters, drones, and search dogs.
Spanish police called off the search at the end of June, but in a statement on Monday the force said teams had not stopped searching every day. His family had also been searching for his daily.
“The mountain rescue and intervention group of the Civil Guard has located the lifeless body of a young man in the Masca area after 29 days of constant search,” said the Civil Guard.
“Given the complexity of the case, the discovery has been possible thanks to the incessant and discreet search carried out by the Civil Guard during these 29 days, in which the natural space was preserved so that it would not be filled with curious onlookers.
“All indications indicate that it could be the young British man who has been missing since June 17 in the absence of full identification.
“The first investigations reveal that he could have suffered an accident fall in the inaccessible area where he was found.”
Mr Slater’s mother, Debbie Duncan, was on Monday said to be “completely devastated” alongside other family members who had been searching for him.
Mr Slater had attended the NRG music festival with two friends before his disappearance. Following a night out, he is understood to have travelled to an Airbnb in Masca, along with two men he had met.
The two men said to have rented the property were later ruled “not relevant” to the case.
Mr Slater is understood to have left the Airbnb the following morning, on June 17.
Around 8.30am he made a final frantic phone call to his friend, Lucy Law, telling her he had attempted to walk back to where he and his friends were staying after missing his bus – a journey that would have taken him around 11 hours.
He said he had “cut his leg” on a cactus, had “no idea where he was”, and that his phone’s battery was on one per cent and he needed water.
Mr Slater’s phone ran out of battery a short while later, with his last known location being in Rural de Teno park in the north of Tenerife.
Charity LBT Global, which supports the families of British people missing overseas, said on Monday: “LBT Global is saddened to announce that a body found in Tenerife does look to be that of Jay Slater.
“It is understood the body was found close to the site of his mobile phone’s last location.
“Although formal identification is yet to be carried out, the body was found with Mr Slater’s possessions and clothes.
“A post-mortem examination and forensic inquiries will follow.
“LBT Global are supporting the family at this distressing time and ask for everyone to afford them space and privacy to come to terms with the news.”
His family endured conspiracy theories and “awful comments” being posted online during the search for the apprentice bricklayer, but supporters had raised £50,000 to help fund the hunt for the teenager.
Tenerife’s Guardia Civil said officers are waiting for the results of a post-mortem to confirm that Mr Slater died as a result of an accident.
