Jay Slater: Former Police inspector says investigators must ignore 'external noise'

Jay Slater pictured with his mum Debbie. Credit: Family photograph

A former Merseyside Police inspector and policing expert says investigators in the case of missing Lancashire teenager Jay Slater have to "ignore external noise".

The 19-year-old, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was first reported missing on Monday 17 June, after attempting to return to his accommodation after the NRG festival in Tenerife.

Liverpool John Moores University Policing expert Peter Williams said: "Well, I think we've always had well-meaning individuals who we probably describe as amateur detectives over the years.

"When we see these sort of events, it's of great public interest. But the situation has moved on and we've seen that here in the UK with our major investigations.

Members of a search and rescue team search near the last known location of Jay Slater, near to the village of Masca, Tenerife. Credit: PA Images

"What you have got, particularly with social media, you've got a whole army of people out there now who are able to access things like open source material. We've got intelligence agencies who are very skilled at doing that, like Bellingcat.

"Bellingcat were able to inform the Metropolitan Police two days before, the suspects that were responsible for the Salisbury poisoning.

"So there is a lot of credibility out there and there are a lot of people now who are actually able to research investigative skills and these people are applying some of these skills and the theories to these types of investigations and in the case of Jay, exactly the same."

Jay's friends and family hope a new blurry CCTV image may be a new clue.

Jay disappeared following an attempt to walk back to his accommodation after missing a bus.

He had attended the NRG music festival on the island with two friends before his disappearance.

Ms Law, who went to the festival with Jay, said he called her at about 8.30am on Monday and told her he was “lost in the mountains, he wasn’t aware of his surroundings, he desperately needed a drink and his phone was on 1%”.

People have been coming up with their own theories surrounding the disappearance of Jay, but Mr Williams says that the "external noise" could potentially be too much in this case.

He continued: "The investigation team have got to ignore that [external noise]. We teach all our investigators and remind them as they go through their career the ABC which is, assume nothing, believe no one, check everything and that's what they have got to do in this case and that is how British investigations are structured these days.

Mr Williams said it is a different criminal justice system in Spain: "It's the Continental Inquisitorial System as opposed to ours which is adversarial.

"The likelihood is that this will be a judge-led inquiry so they aren't necessarily directly in charge of that investigation. There's somebody above them who is technically controlling it."

Mr Williams says there are certain things that can be done which would improve the situation for the victim's family including appointing a skilled family liaison officer to "ease a lot of the worry and enhance communication to the family."

"Ideally send someone from Lancashire Police who has got the linguistic skills .

"But if we can't identify someone like that with the assistance from the College of Policing now, I'm sure we could identify someone who is senior enough to deal with this media and the social media in particular, because if we don't do that, we know from reports here that it can impinge on public confidence in the investigation and it strikes me that's what is occurring here."