Jay Slater's heartbroken dad criticises investigation into son's disappearance

Warren Slater, 58, also questioned why two men who drove him to a remote AirBnB were ruled out of any involvement.

He joined a team of 10 volunteers on Saturday to scour the mountainous region in Tenerife and described the ongoing search for his son "like a riddle" to which he can't find the answer. The group spent several hours, in baking 25C heat, as they searched the Valley of Barranco de Juan Lopez, close to the village of Masca.

He said: "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.”

He added: "My starting position, I’ve said this from day one, ask the two men who’ve taken him - and then start from there."

Sign up for our free newsletters now Apprentice bricklayer Jay, 19, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, disappeared on the Spanish island on June 17.

He had been holidaying with friends Lucy Law, 18, and Brad Hargreaves, 19, and had been partying at the Papagayo nightclub in Playa de las Americas the night before he vanished.

He left the club with two British men, one named Ayub Qassim, 31, known by the nickname 'Johnny Vegas', and an unnamed second man, to head to their Airbnb rental near the remote village of Masca on the north of the island.

Jay left the Airbnb on the Monday morning.

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At around 8.30am, he called Lucy to say he was in the middle of nowhere, trying to get home with no water and 1 per cent on his phone battery.

His last known location was in the Rural de Teno Park in the north of the Canary Island – which was about an 11-hour walk from his accommodation in Los Cristianos. His mum Debbie Duncan has thanked a local hiking group as well as local volunteers who are continuing to search for her son. TikTok star Jay Slater search volunteer Paul Arnott says British mountain rescue teams are eager to fly to Tenerife to join the search for the missing 19-year-old, as a “massive PR thing”. But the expert mountain hiker, who has been sharing clips of his own search effort on TikTok, said his pals at the Scottish mountain rescue are still waiting for permission from the Spanish and Scottish police authorities. However, Police Scotland said they had not been approached by any Scottish Mountain Rescue Team asking for permission to go to Spain and that no voluntary body, MRT or otherwise, needed to seek permission from Police Scotland to carry out activity overseas.