by A former senior Metropolitan Police officer said he believes Jay Slater has fallen into a ravine, disappeared on purpose or even been abducted.
Jay, 19, has been missing in Tenerife since last Monday (June 17). Jay, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, spoke to his friend Lucy Mae Law at around 8am on Monday morning (June 17) after staying in an Airbnb rental with two people he met on the island the night before.
But the flat was ‘in the middle of nowhere’ and Jay’s phone ran out of battery as he said he went away the next morning. He has not been seen since.
READ MORE: Jay Slater missing in Tenerife LIVE: Latest updates from search after police give tragic update
Detective Chief Inspector Peter Kirkahm, who served in the country’s biggest police force for more than 20 years, has given a grim assessment as the search enters its 12th day.
Writing in the Mirror, he said: “In the circumstances as originally reported, and especially with the last phone call he is known to have made, the most obvious theory is that Jay Slater was lost while trying to walk back through a remote and difficult place. an area unknown to him.”
“It is possible that he has fallen into a ravine or something similar and is injured and incapacitated. As a result of this possibility the searches that we have seen the police do but the area in question so much so that, even now, only a fraction can be thoroughly searched.
“Sadly, if this is the explanation, after such a long period of missing, it is unlikely that Jay will be found alive. But the police will continue to review what they have done and move on to the next possible area.
“The second possibility, which must always be taken into account, is that Jay has deliberately disappeared for some reason. As we find out more about him, it seems that he has a somewhat checkered past that d His disappearance could lead to following lines of inquiry into his background and domestic circumstances to find out if this is possible.
“This is an aspect of the investigation that the UK police will be much better able to make progress on. I would hope that the Spanish authorities, who retain the lead in this investigation, have contacted Lancashire Police with a request for assistance in relation to this.
“The third possibility that must be considered is that Jay has been kidnapped, or worse, by someone else. This could be a spur of the moment thing, arising from a spontaneous situation that arose, or something pre-planned resulting in a longer-term conflict or dispute.
“The spontaneous version doesn’t have to involve anyone with any significant criminal history so it could be anyone. It doesn’t have to have any intention to do them any harm either .other people present.
“The reports that Jay left his friends and went out with two men he had just met while clubbing may warrant an urgent investigation. The police should be in Tenerife is prioritizing an investigation into this line of inquiry.
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“If, as reported, the men are British and are back in the UK, this is again an area that the UK authorities hope to help.
“The pre-planned version would normally only be something that would be done by people with a serious criminal history and/or someone who would have a major conflict with Jay, such as thousands of pounds of debt or criminal property, as drugs, similar. This is the other area where the starting point for the police is Jay’s background, with extensive inquiries into his family, friends and associates as well as his own history.
“Together, these three basic categories of theory cover almost all possibilities. To conduct a thorough and competent investigation the police must keep an open mind and follow lines of inquiry related to all three.
“That said, in the real world of limited resources, it is inevitable and perfectly acceptable for the police to prioritize them. So far the priority has been given to the first possibility that Jay is lost and succumbs to illness or injury but as time moves on and no trace of him is found, the alternatives will need to be looked at more closely.
“The nature of the area where Jay was last seen, and the size of the area that needs to be searched, means that it is unlikely that the police will be able to definitively indicate that he has caused some sort of accidental injury.
“This is made worse by the fact that the police do not have the technological assistance that is almost always available to them: the area is remote with very little CCTV coverage, his mobile phone was reportedly about to run out of power and there is no known vehicle . and therefore automatic number plate readers, even if they exist on few roads, cannot add much to the investigation.
“Again with such cases, we have to accept that the investigation will go slowly and that it may not be resolved definitively. It could be done better or faster but it is inevitable in real life.”
His gloomy pessimism is echoed by sources on the island, who fear that the teenager will not be found alive if he gets lost in the mountains on Monday 17 June.
In an update on Thursday, police searching for the teenager said it was ‘very likely’ that Jay would be found alive. A good source from the Civil Guard said: “No one is talking at the moment about ending the search, although it is very unlikely that Jay would have survived if he got lost in the mountains as we have been told. he did.”
