Jay Slater search: Why missing Brit travelled to Airbnb | World | News

One theory on why missing teen Jay Slater didn’t go back to his own apartment in Tenerife has been given by the man who let him stay in a remote Airbnb. 

Ayub Qassim, 31, was with the 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer just prior to his disappearance, having driven him back to the property in the village of Masca. TV detective Mark Williams-Thomas interviewed Qassim after Jay vanished on June 17.

Jay had been raving in Playa de las Americas in the south of Tenerife before being driven away by Qassim and another man.

Former Met Police officer Mr Williams-Thomas spoke with Qassim, who revealed that the reason he stayed with him was because he wanted to carry on partying despite his own accommodation being just ten minutes away.

Mr Williams-Thomas said: “He told me he was on the (Veronicas) Strip in Playa de las Americas and said that Jay wanted to carry on partying and that he hadn’t anywhere to stay, so he (Qassim) invited him back to his rental.

“In the car they played music all the way, they stopped once to get a can of fizzy drink, and there were three of them in the car, Jay in the back and Qassim’s friend in the front.” 

Once at the property Jay walked in and Qassim and got him a red blanket to sleep on as well as showing him the sofa he could sleep on. He also gave him a towel if he needed a shower as well as a cigarette and a phone charger – both of which he’d requested.

The following morning Qassim said the teenager said he needed “some scran” and set off to get a bus rather than wait for a lift that Qassim has offered.

Jay, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, disappeared on the Spanish island on June 17. He was last spotted departing an Airbnb located close to Masca village, around eight in the morning.

His close friend Lucy Mae Law, who was with Jay in the Canary Islands, was among the last to hear from him at approximately 8am on the day he disappeared.

He contacted her to say he was making his way back on foot after missing the bus, saying he was thirsty and tired, had sustained a cut from a cactus and that his phone battery was nearly dead. His mobile last signalled its position somewhere within the Parque Rural de Teno nature reserve.

Before they abandoned their official search last week, Spanish police had focused their efforts there. His family is continuing to search.

Meanwhile, one of missing teen Jay Slater’s best friends has hit back at armchair detectives circulating wild conspiracies online. Brad Hargreaves travelled to Tenerife with the 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer to attend the NRG music festival.

Now he’s been forced to hit back at trolls on the internet who say he has some part to play in Jay’s disappearance which he said is “beyond me.”

Brad discounted out of hand one theory doing the rounds on the internet that Tenerife’s drug scene could have played a role in Jay’s disappearance.

“Thinkin I’m involved in it all is beyond me,” (sic) he wrote reports The Independent.

“We’ve been mates for years, came on our first holiday together and unfortunately this has happened. We ain’t drug mules or whatever…. peple [sic] need to know the facts before talking s*** on the internet…” (sic)