Jay Slater’s mother yesterday urged police to keep going with their investigation as the hiker who found a pair of mystery sunglasses says the area where the teen’s phone last pinged suggested someone had thrown it there.
Heartbroken mother Debbie, father Warren, and brother Zak are understood to have spoken with Spanish cops over the phone to make ‘sure the police aren’t giving up on Jay’, according to a family source.
They have been in constant contact with the police after being left ‘blindsided’ by Sunday’s decision to call off the hunt for the missing 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer after 14 days scouring the mountains in Tenerife.
It comes as amateur sleuths who have taken over the search for Jay in the police’s absence claimed they have discovered a new clue which could help explain what happened to him.
TikTok sleuth and amateur mountaineer Paul Arnott, who has been assisting Jay’s family since the police wound down their investigation, told a pair of sunglasses similar to the ones Jay was last seen wearing had been found close to where his mobile phone last pinged.
A family source told The Mirror: ‘The family want to be sure the police aren’t giving up on Jay. They are in constant contact with them about the case.’
The sunglasses were handed in to the family, which were found by Chris Pennington, 43, originally from Chester and a former British Army reservist who served in Iraq with the Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry.
He told the how he found the sunglasses and believes the area where Jay’s phone last pinged suggested someone had thrown it in there.
Mr Pennington who now lives in Tenerife, told : ‘I’ve done a bit of hiking and mountaineering and wanted to help out the family.
‘They are desperate to find their lad and with my background I thought I could do my bit.
‘I parked up near the viewpoint near where the phone last pinged and found them on the ground near some bushes and in the area where they have been searching.
‘I don’t know if they are Jay’s but as a duty of care I picked them up and told the Guardia Civil about them.
‘They told me not to touch them if possible and wrap them in paper not plastic and I did and handed them in.
‘They also took my DNA and fingerprints as well. It must be awful for the family with the search sacking back and they haven’t had any news for two weeks weeks.
‘I walked a bit further towards where they said his phone pinged but it was a challenge to get through, it was impossible.
‘You would have needed a machete to get through all that undergrowth so this phone pinged from there it’s because someone threw it in there.
‘The sunglasses were about 50 metres from the road near a tunnel I wanted to search. I saw them glinting in the sun and picked them up.’
Mr Arnott, an adventurer and mountaineer from Flitwick, Bedfordshire, cancelled a charity fundraiser to fly out to Tenerife last week and join the search and rescue operation.
The self-described explorer, who has been sharing clips on TikTok of his own search operation, has been backed by Jay’s family, who he claims are ‘really proud’ of his efforts.
After Spanish officials called off the search, he told : ‘The police say they have searched everywhere but I’m not happy with that.
‘If they had searched everywhere they would have found him, but they haven’t and I’m convinced he is on that mountain.
‘I’ve been along ridges and gullies they haven’t been down and now I intend to look at two other ravines.
‘They say they have searched everywhere but in my opinion that haven’t and that’s why I am carrying on.’
Mr Arnott also revealed he had refused help from Jay’s family and said: ‘They are so amazing and lovely. They just want to find Jay and I want to help them.
‘They keep offering to pay for my food and accommodation, but I keep telling them no. I don’t want anything and I don’t want anything from the Go Fund Me site.
‘What I would be interested in doing is setting up my own fund to pay for a team from Scotland mountain rescue to come out here.’
Speaking on ITV’s This Morning, he said: ‘There has been a lot of people around however I’ve only seen four people actually searching.
‘The rest of the people are standing on the side of the road, blocking off paths, trying to stop news reporters going into certain areas.
‘The four people that are searching are doing a good job of searching the paths.
‘They’ve gone off-grid a little bit from what I can see but everyone else is just standing about.’
Meanwhile, a family friend told The Times that the Slaters were ‘in the dark’ about the next steps of the investigation.
It emerged that Spanish authorities say there is ‘no current evidence of criminality’ in the Jay Slater case.
The female investigating judge who is being kept informed of developments has been told the Civil Guard sees nothing at this stage pointing to Jay being the victim of a crime.
As is standard procedure in Spain, the police force is reporting to a court which has opened a routine judicial investigation and has declined to comment on what it is doing behind the scenes as part of a ‘parallel probe’ which has continued despite the ending of the visible mountain search.
TV detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who worked on the Nicola Bulley case, urged the family to use the £45,000 raised in GoFundMe donations to hire ‘experts’ to help find him.
Echoing the family’s ‘disappointment’ to end the search, he told the Mirror: ‘I have advised the family to use the GoFundMe money to bring in a large team of experts to flood the area from where we know Jay last was.’
A judicial source, speaking on condition of anonymity as is normal in Spain, said: ‘There is no evidence of criminality at this stage in this case.
‘That’s not to say things won’t change because the case remains open and investigations are ongoing. But right now that’s the situation.’
Another said: ‘This missing persons’ case has been judicialised as is normal in Spain and it’s been lodged at Court of Instruction Number One in Icod de los Vinos.
‘The Civil Guard don’t have to tell the judge about everything officers are doing but will be keeping her updated on case progress and of course update her on any significant developments.’
In line with the revelation that the Jay Slater probe is being treated at the moment as a missing person inquiry and not a crime, officials confirmed investigating judge Maria Goya has not declared it ‘secret’ to protect the judicial proceedings.
An order called in Spanish a ‘secreto de sumario’ is often slapped on a criminal probe in its infancy, preventing even defence lawyers and prosecuting attorneys from accessing case files.
Such orders also prevent public officials from revealing details of any case files with breaches punishable by heavy fines.
Judges who make their investigations secret when cases are still in their infancy act out of a desire to avoid them being compromised by minimising the risk of leaks.
The judicial source said: ‘The Jay Slater case that has been opened at the Icod de los Vinos court is not under any secrecy order.’