Jay Slater’s Instagram account has been ‘hacked’ by a mystery person as the search for the teen in Tenerife enters a seventh day.
The 19-year-old, who is the subject of a search and rescue operation on the Spanish island after going missing last weekend, had his account accessed by someone who was not him, his loved ones claim.
Friends of Jay’s family have lashed out in anger at the currently unknown person, branding them “sick in the head” and accusing people of making up “pure lies” about the circumstances surrounding his disappearance.
The apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, last posted to his Instagram account three years ago in July 2021, but there is a feature that allows close friends to see when he last logged in.
Jay disappeared last Monday after attending a three-day high-energy music festival, with the teenager later seen walking away from Playa de las Americas.
Jay Slater, pictured here in a Snapchat post the morning he went missing, has not been seen since Monday, June 17
Search and rescue teams are scouring a mountainous area in Tenerife, near the village of Masca, to find him
Later he contacted a friend to say that he was ‘lost in the mountains with no water’ and that his mobile phone had only one percent battery left, while the last signal of the phone was close to the beautiful site of the Masca Gorge which was the focus of search and rescue efforts. in the days since.
His mother Debbie Duncan, father Warren Slater and brother Zak, as well as other family members, have since flown to the island to help in the search for him, while friends back home have continued to appeal for help finding the 19-year-old… old on social media.
However, they have reached out to some people following the case after it emerged that Jay’s Instagram account was accessed by an unknown person while the search for him was underway.
Rachel Louise Harg, who runs the Jay Slater Missing page on Facebook and is close to his family, said his social media had been hacked and it was not Jay who logged in.
She wrote, “Jay’s mom asked me to post this. For anyone asking who logged into his Instagram account, it’s not him [Jay] or her [his mother]someone else has logged in.’
She added: “Some people are actually so sick in the head, there are people who are hacking into my accounts and Jay’s family’s accounts, making them outright lies and acting like we’re all in on it.”
Ms Harg said Debbie is “broken” and called the mystery person who used the account “cruel”.
It comes as a new video emerged on social media showing the teenager dancing shirtless in a nightclub just hours before he disappeared.
In the clip we see Jay dancing without a top at Papagayo nightclub, at the end of the infamous Veronica’s Strip area of Playa de las Americas.
It is understood the afterparty ended at 5am and an hour later Jay was with two mystery British men at their £40-a-night AirBnB 20 miles away in Masca.
Jay Slater, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, traveled to the Canary Islands for a music festival with Lucy Law and another friend
Jay Slater was seen dancing shirtless at Papagayo nightclub (pictured), at the end of the infamous Veronica’s Strip area of Playa de las Americas in Tenerife
Apprentice bricklayer Jay Slater, 19, pictured here with his mother Debbie Duncan, was last heard from at 8.50am on Monday
Search teams looked at buildings in a ravine near the village of Masca on Sunday morning
It was here that a woman made her last confirmed sightings of Jay around 8:15 am. She said he walked briskly up the hill away from Playa de las Americas.
Debbie, 55, who flew to Tenerife from her home in Oswaldtwistle, told MailOnline that someone who looked like her son was sighted at around 6pm on the day he disappeared near the church in Santiago de Teide, back towards Playa de las Americas. .
She said the man told police he was “sitting on a bench at the church with two men and looked a little worse for wear,” but at this time it has not been confirmed that this was Jay.
Since he disappeared, wild theories have flooded the internet and social media, which MailOnline does not publish, but his mother Debbie fears he is being ‘held against his will’.
Police say they are keeping an open mind about what happened and have deployed helicopters, drones and sniffer dogs in the search for him.
On Saturday, Jay’s father Warren, 58, and brother Zak, 24, visited the spot where his phone last pinged and hugged in emotional scenes.
Choking back tears, Warren, wearing a bucket hat, sunglasses and a black T-shirt, said, “He’s my son. I just want him back.”
The pair traveled to a remote gorge above the village of Masca, 30 kilometers from the party resort of Playa de les Americas at an altitude of 900 metres, where Jay’s mobile phone last pinged on Monday morning.
Warren Slater and his son Zak, 24, were joined by other family and friends at the remote mountain spot where his cell phone last pinged Monday morning
Jay’s mother Debbie Duncan has made a direct appeal to her son, telling him ‘we just need you home’ as the search for him enters its seventh day
They watched as mountain rescue teams and civil protection units scanned the cactus-strewn canyon with high-powered binoculars for clues.
Friends of Jay who flew in from Britain were also among the group and spent several hours at the scene as search teams explained what they were doing.
Both father and son appeared to be in tears as they hugged each other in the secluded spot and Warren simply said, “I just want the boy back.”
They also visited the Air BnB where Jay had gone after the festival with two mysterious British men and from where he had sent two Snapchat messages to his friend Lucy Mae Law.
The family gathering comes six days after Jay disappeared in Tenerife on Monday morning.
Lucy Law, 18, was the last person to speak to Jay when he called her from a remote mountain pass in Masca around 8am on Monday morning.
The walk from Jay’s last known location to his accommodation would have taken approximately 11 hours on foot.
Lucy, who went to the NRG music festival with Jay, said he called her and told her he was “lost in the mountains, unaware of his surroundings, in desperate need of a drink and his phone was on one percent stood.
This morning, search teams trying to locate Jay limited their efforts to small buildings near where his phone last pinged in Tenerife.
Officers from the Canary Island Guardia Civil were seen circling two buildings at the bottom of a ravine in the Rural de Teno Park on Sunday.
Efforts appeared to focus solely on that one area after days of searches in the village of Masca and the surrounding countryside.
Those carrying out the searches on the seventh day of the hunt for Mr Slater could be seen looking into blue barrels outside one of the small buildings.