A friend of missing teen Jay Slater has lifted the lid on the last conversation he had with his pal. Brad Hargreaves spoke out as the search for Jay reaches its 12th day. Brad, 19, was one of the last people to speak to Jay, also 19, before he vanished on the Spanish island of Tenerife last Monday after having attended a music festival the night before. Appearing on this morning, Brad, one of teenager Jay’s closest friends, spoke with crime journalist Isla Traquair about his holidaymaker pal’s disappearance. The Mirror reports Lancashire-born Jay told his friends he was hours away from his accommodation with a very low phone battery. Brad was emotional as he told of Jay’s “zest for life” and said Jay wasn’t worried about finding his way back to his friends. He said: “He was on the phone and he goes: ‘I’ve got walk and go all down that road’.” He added that Jay had promised to call him back but hung up as “someone else was ringing him.” Brad added that Jay, according to him, would have avoided going down the road he had mentioned during their phone call as he speculated the savvy lad would have taken a safer path. The teen revealed that he could also hear Jay’s feet slide on the rocks, signalling to him his friend had “went off the road.. That’s how I knew he went off the road because, you know when you walk on gravel, or whatever it is, you can… you know what I mean, stones.” Isla asked: “Were you concerned at that point?”, leading Brad to admit he wasn’t. He said: “Not at the time because we were both, like, laughing about it. He said: ‘look where I am’. “He didn’t seem concerned on the phone until we knew how far away he were. I said: ‘put your location on.” He said: ’15 minute drive, fourteen-hour walk.’ I don’t know if it’s accurate or not so I said to him: ‘it’s only a 15-min drive, get a taxi.”
In recent days, Jay Slater’s family have come under fire after the launch of a GoFundMe campaign, which gathered over £40k. The youngster’s mother Debbie recently confirmed that the funds were being withdrawn. She said they will be used for her and her loved ones’ stay in Tenerife, as they have all joined the search for the teen, and that cash will also go towards food. In another recent instalment of This Morning, Isla Traquair raised alarm bells about the conspiracy theories swirling around Jay Slater’s disappearance as she also called out their impact on his family and friends. She said: “I went into a deep dive very late last night looking into all this. People have posted photos of bodies saying ‘that could be his body’ and they’ve traced to a photograph taken in Iceland. “It’s absolute nonsense – can you imagine how traumatic that is for his family?” The authorities are searching the Rural de Teno Park and Masca, and multiple “sightings” of Jay Slater notably catching up with recent matches of the Euro 2024 have led to confusion. Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond – Sign up to our daily newsletter here.
