Jay Slater was due to finish his apprenticeship in bricklaying in July
A specialist team of volunteers are preparing to mount a fresh search for missing Jay Slater in Tenerife, insisting “there is more we can do”.
Non-profit Signi Zoekhonden, based in the Netherlands, has deployed a team of five people and four dogs to the island, with a sixth person due to leave on Monday.
Marieke Krans, one of the volunteers, spoke to the BBC from Brussels airport as the group prepared to board a flight on Sunday evening.
Mr Slater’s mother Debbie Duncan said the “generosity” of people donating to a crowdfunding page had made the move possible.
Handout
Jay Slater pictured in the clothes he was wearing when he was last seen
Mr Slater, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, has not been heard from since the morning of 17 June, when he called friends to say he was lost in a mountainous area and had 1% battery on his phone.
Spanish police scoured the rough landscape around the village of Masca, where the 19-year-old stayed after a night out, but called off the official search after 12 days after no sign of him.
Signi Zoekhonden has about 20 years experience in searching for missing people and contacted Mr Slater’s family after reading about the case.
A statement from Ms Duncan said getting the Dutch team to Tenerife had taken “a lot of planning”.
She added: “Jay is just a normal hardworking young lad from Lancashire who is very loved by all who know him.
“He is about to finish his three-year apprenticeship this month.
“Although we don’t have any answers to his disappearance we obviously have to remain positive.”
Signi Zoekhonden, based in the Netherlands, has two decades of experience in difficult searches
Ms Krans told the BBC the group will also use drones in the search, subject to flight permission being granted by local authorities.
When asked about the team’s chance of finding Mr Slater after the official search effort ended unsuccessfully, she said: “We are very committed to come and we are confident in the dogs and in ourselves.
“Our dogs are trained to find people, both alive or dead, and have more skills. They can search underwater, and up mountains, whatever it may be.
“They are really creative and that means there is more we can do. We will go where the dogs lead us.”
Ms Krans said Signi Zoekhonden is active every few days conducting searches all over the world, including for “people who are left behind” after earthquakes or other natural disasters.
She said a team was also recently involved in working on a “cold case” in Austria.
PA Media
Guardia Civil officers in the harsh landscape around Masca before the official search effort was called off
The team were due to speak to Mr Slater’s family and the Spanish Guardia Civil after arriving in Tenerife to gather as much information as possible, Ms Krans continued.
She said the group was aiming to search for about five-and-a-half days.
Mr Slater had been in Tenerife, his first holiday abroad without parents, to attend the NRG music festival in the tourist hotspot of Playa de Las Americas.
In the early hours of 17 June, he reportedly entered a car with two British men he had met during the course of the holiday.
He is believed to have ended up at an Airbnb rental in Masca, a tiny settlement in a rural national park, about 40 minutes drive north from his accommodation.
His friends, Brad Hargreaves and Lucy Law, said they spoke to Mr Slater between 07:30 and 08:50 BST that morning, when he said he had missed a bus and was attempting to walk back.
The Guardia Civil have said that while the land-search has finished, the investigation into Mr Slater’s disappearance continues.
However the force has declined to comment on any specific leads it may be following or any evidence it has uncovered.
Mr Slater’s family have said they will stay in Tenerife “for as long as it takes”.
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