Sick video circulating online which claims to show Jay Slater being severely beaten does NOT feature the missing teenager, ex-detective reveals
A distressing video circulating online that shows a person being severely beaten up is not Jay Slater, a former detective has revealed.
Mark Williams-Thomas, who travelled to Tenerife to help with the search, said the footage has been falsely linked to the missing 19 year old.
He suggested the clip, which is too distressing to publish, was first posted on Russian social media sites nine years ago when Mr Slater would have been just ten years old.
The trainee bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire disappeared on June 17 after attending the New Rave Generation music festival.
He was last seen in the mountain village of Masca when he left an AirBnB he had travelled back to with two British men he met that night.
Spanish police have insisted that the two men have nothing to do with Mr Slater's disappearance and have so far dismissed claims of any criminal involvement.
Missing teenager Jay Slater pictured with his mother Debbie Duncan
Mark Williams-Thomas, who travelled to Tenerife to help with the search, said the footage has been falsely linked to the missing 19 year old
A Snapchat picture Jay sent to friends on the doorstep of the cottage at 7.30am, in which he was holding a cigarette
The £40-a-night Casa Abuela Tina holiday rental near the remote village of Masca where Jay spent his final hours before going missing
The Guardia Civil scoured the nearby Rural de Teno national park for nearly two weeks before the search was dramatically called off last Sunday after no breakthrough was made.
The case has sparked wild speculation about Mr Slater's whereabouts online with the distressing video being just one of a number of pieces of misinformation that have been shared.
Mr Williams-Thomas said he had had 'lots of people' getting in touch about the clip but he dismissed claims it could be Mr Slater on Friday.
He posted on X: 'The video was first posted on a social media site nine years ago and therefore cannot be Jay Slater.'
The detective, who also worked on the Madeleine McCann case added : 'So much fake content has been created in the Jay Slater case – mocked up chat messages, pics.
'It's a very different world we live in today with social media and online detectives.
'Overwhelming response from people has been very positive, people just wanting to help, even though most have no direct info, just what they have read, seen or think.
'Also a number of people making vile threats and ransom demands, all checked out and have no credibility.'
Mr Slater's mother and father, Warren Slater, 58, and, Debbie Duncan, 55, travelled to Tenerife to help with the search for their son.
On Friday Spanish police said Mr Slater's family could use their own search-and-rescue teams in the hunt for the missing 19-year-old.
His devastated family previously told Sky News they were waiting for authorities to allow them to use some of the £50,000 of donations, raised through a crowdfunding page, to pay for specialist search and rescue teams.
Jay travelled to the Casa Abuela Tina Airbnb (pictured) in the village of Masca with two older British men before he went missing
Volunteers gathering ahead of a final 'massive search' for Jay Slater, which was called off by Spanish police the following day
Jay Slater, 19, went back to Qassim's remote cottage – called Casa Abuela Tina – at 5am on the day he vanished
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 Slater's best friend Lucy Law posted this picture on social media of the missing teenager nearly three weeks after he vanished in Tenerife
The announcement comes after Jay's best friend broke her silence to share a new picture of the missing teenager nearly three weeks after he vanished in Tenerife.
Lucy Law, who was one of the last people to see the teenager before his disappearance, 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.
When he went missing, 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 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.
Search crews are seen last week scouring the area where Jay is believed to have gone missing
A map showing Jay Slater's last known movements before he disappeared
Ayub Qassim invited Jay, 19, back to his rented holiday cottage after a rave in Tenerife and says: 'He came to my Airbnb alive and he left my Airbnb alive'
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.
It came as one of the British men who the missing teenager spent his final hours with claimed Jay Slater found himself at the Airbnb cottage at the centre of the mystery because as 'all his friends left him'.
Ayub Qassim says he invited the apprentice bricklayer, 19, from Lancashire, back to his £40-a-night rented holiday cottage after a rave in Tenerife hours before he vanished on June 17.
The 31-year-old, who booked the Airbnb under the name Ayub Abdul, broke his silence, telling MailOnline: 'He came to my Airbnb alive and he left my Airbnb alive.'
MailOnline exclusively revealed that Qassim was jailed nine years ago for being the mastermind behind a sophisticated operation to flood Wales with Class A drugs.
Spanish police searching for Jay spoken to Qassim and the unnamed friend known only as 'Johnny Vegas' as part of their inquiries but concluded they were 'irrelevant' to the investigation.
Jay was last seen by a witness walking off in search of a bus stop close to the Airbnb at around 8am on Monday, June 17. He called a friend to say he was making the 11-hour walk back to his hotel in Playa de las Americas but has not been heard from since.
