The heartbroken father of missing teenager Jay Slater has described the search for his son as "like a riddle".
Warren Slater was part of a 10-strong volunteer team that combed through the mountainous area in Tenerife where the 19-year-old vanished. The group braved the sweltering 25C heat yesterday, focusing their efforts on the Valley of Barranco de Juan Lopez near the village of Masca.
Reflecting on the challenging search through the rugged landscape, he said: "It's the fourth time I've done this. It was hard, I nearly put my eye out." Warren also voiced the family’s frustration at the investigation, adding: "Tell me where I look, I can only go off the last sighting, the woman in that restaurant saw him going the wrong way. Which human being lets a young boy go the wrong way? Everything stinks. It's just a riddle and I don't know the answer."
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Jay, an apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, disappeared on the Canary Island on June 17. He was last seen that morning leaving an Airbnb accommodation in the north of the island, not far from Masca, reports the Mirror.
Jay had been enjoying a holiday with friends Lucy Law, aged 18, and 19-year-old Brad Hargreaves, and had spent time at the Papagayo nightclub in Playa de las Americas. After the night out, he left with two British men to return to their Airbnb.
Warren questioned why the police had so swiftly discounted the two men from their inquiries. He said: "My starting position, I've said this from day one, ask the two men who've taken him. And then start from there.
"If you and me in England had taken a young girl to the Lake District, do you think they would have let us go back to Spain? We're going round and round in circles. The Spanish police, you can't go screaming and shouting at them because they don't do anything.
"If you start screaming and shouting they won't do anything even more. If they want to go and search a house they have to go to court first."
He added: "I was quite disappointed last Saturday when they did the search, they said the whole island was going to turn out. Let all the big boys do it, the police told me the big, big search was Saturday. We got down in that valley at 2pm and there wasn't a soul.
"The way they made it out when they said they were going to have the biggest ever search." He said he timed the walk from the holiday home to the valley they were searching and it took 90 minutes via a busy tourist trail where hundreds arrive daily to snap images of the picturesque landscape.
He added: "You've walked from that B&B at 9am you've walked all the way up here, he's a young fit lad, all the way. You're trying to tell me no car, no one's seen him at half past 10. Why would you go down there? You've got to end why go any further? Why would you leave this road? You haven't got a clue where you are.
"And no one else has seen him. One woman, he's knocked on her door, she said at 10 and he went the wrong way. This morning I saw her, she didn't want to stop. It's somebody's son, you know if you're the last person to see someone's son you try your damndest to help, don't you?
"If your son was here what would you do? If he was at the top of that rock you'd climb it. You need Columbo. The two guys, why they took him to that bed and breakfast. So when you get home get me a Columbo. You start from the last two people don't you. And they've just let them walk out the Airbnb Jay visited was rented by convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim."
Qassim has since said: "I let the geezer stay at mine because he had nowhere else to go. His friends had all left him. I know Jay, through friends, I'm not going to bring someone back to mine if I don't know them. I'm doing the geezer a favour and now my face is all over the news. It's a bit mental. I haven't even done anything."
Qassim added: "The only comment I have to make is that Jay came to the house alive, and he left the house alive." The Spanish authorities ended their search last weekend after 14 days.
