An Essex mayor with mountaineering experience has joined the search for missing teenager Jay Slater in Tenerife.
Shane Yerrell, who is mayor of Waltham Abbey, flew out to the Spanish island on Thursday after offering Mr Slater’s family help, and has spent two days scouring for the missing teen.
Spanish police called off the search for Mr Slater, 19, who went missing more than three weeks ago on June 17. He attempted to walk through a mountainous area of Tenerife alone following three days at a music festival.
But the teen’s frantic family members have continued the search themselves, and Mr Yerrell’s help is likely to come as a welcome addition to their efforts.
Mr Yerrell is experienced in mountainous terrains such as the Rural de Teno Park where Mr Slater disappeared, and is due to spend more time helping with the search.
"I told the family, 'I've climbed a couple of mountains, I'm no mountain expert by any means, but I've climbed Kilimanjaro and Mount Olympus, so I've done it and I'd like to come and help,” Mr Yerrell told the Mirror.
“We spent the whole day Saturday scaling the mountain and then the same thing again on Monday on a different route.
“They are doing everything to find him. They're not just out for an hour, they're out all day 9.30am until 6pm. We covered miles, but there's still a lot of ground to cover.
“The altitude and the heat makes it really difficult and the mountain is massive. You go over one edge and then there's another bit. It's unbelievable out there. It would take weeks or months to cover.”
He said that as a father of a teenager himself, he “feel[s] for all of them, his dad in particular”.
Mr Slater went missing shortly after leaving an AirBnB in northern Tenerife. He was invited back to the property with two men after a rave. His last confirmed sighting was in Masca just after 8am walking out of the village.
Mr Yerrell said Mr Slater’s parents are “just living on hope”.
“It's awful - they've got no answers,” he said. “They don't know whether Jay is alive or dead.”
He said they are still hoping he will be found alive, adding: “I would be exactly the same. Until you know for sure...”.
Spanish police said on Tuesday they too believe there is still hope of finding the missing apprentice bricklayer alive, with “several lines of inquiry” still being investigated.
A spokesperson told The Sun: “The investigation is ongoing and several lines of inquiry are being pursued”.
A source close to the probe saying they were still hopeful of finding the teenager alive.
They insisted that the investigation had not yet classed Mr Slater as “missing feared dead”, the newspaper reported.
It came as Mr Slater’s father called for Interpol and British police to join the search for his son - as relatives scoured a town where he is believed to have been spotted nine hours after his last confirmed sighting.
Warren Slater, 58, said British authorities needed to get involved after Spanish police called off the search for Jay in Tenerife.
Speaking to The Sun from Tenerife, Mr Slater said: “As a family, we need to ask the British authorities to help. He's a British citizen. Get Interpol involved.
“At the moment, it’s just us. I haven’t got a team. We need a team to come over here and find out for us what the police are doing and what we need to do.
“Our hands are tied over here - we need experts.
“It’ll take an army 10 years to cover all this. I’d employ a team of Gurkhas.”
Family members on Monday were searching in the town of Santiago del Teide where he was allegedly spotted nine hours after he disappeared.
A witness reportedly claimed to have seen Mr Slated in the village the day he disappeared, relatives last month said. There was also an alleged sighting of him on CCTV.
