Jay Slater’s Instagram account been ‘hacked’ by thriller individual

The Instagram account of Jay Slater has been ‘hacked’ by a mystery person as the search for the teenager in Tenerife continues into 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 isn’t him, his loved ones have claimed.

Friends of Jay’s family have furiously hit out at the currently unknown person, branding them ‘sick in the head’ and accused people of making up ‘pure lies’ about the circumstances surrounding his disappearance.

The apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle, in Lancashire, last posted on his Instagram account three years ago in July 2021, but there is a feature which allows close friends to see when he was last logged on.

Jay vanished last Monday after attending a three-day high energy music festival, with the teenager later being seen walking away from Playa de las Americas. 

He later contacted a friend to say he was ‘lost in the mountains with no water’ and one per cent battery on his mobile, with the phone’s last signal close to the Masca gorge beauty spot, which has been the focus of search and rescue efforts in the days since then.

His mother Debbie Duncan, father Warren Slater and bother Zak, as well as other family members, have since flown out to the island to help with the search for him, while friends at home have continued to appeal for help finding the 19-year-old on social media.

However, they have hit out at some people following the case after it appears Jay’s Instagram account was accessed by an unknown person while the search for him is ongoing.

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 wasn’t Jay logging in.

She wrote: ‘Jays mum’s asked I post this. For everyone asking who has logged into his Instagram account, it’s not him [Jay] or her [his mother], somebody else has logged into it.’ 

She added: ‘Some people are actually this sick in the head, there are people hacking my accounts and Jay’s family’s, making it pure lies and pretending we are all in it.’

Ms Harg said Debbie is ‘broken’ and slammed the mystery person using the account as ‘cruel’.

It comes as new bombshell video emerged on social media showing the teenager dancing shirtless in a nightclub just hours before he disappeared.

In the clip Jay is seen dancing without his top on in  Papagayo nightclub which is at the end of the notorious Veronica’s Strip area of Playa de las Americas.

The after-party is known to have wrapped up at 5am and an hour later Jay was with two mystery British men at their £40-a-night AirBnB 19 miles away at Masca.

It was here that a woman made the last confirmed sighting of Jay at about 8.15am, saying he was walking at pace up the hill and away from Playa de las Americas.

Debbie, 55, who has flown out to Tenerife from her home at Oswaldtwistle, told MailOnline there had been a sighting of someone resembling her son at around 6pm the day he disappeared by the church at Santiago de Teide which is back towards Playa de las Americas.

She said the man had told police he was ‘with two men sitting on a bench by the church looking a little worse for wear’ however at the moment it has not been confirmed this was Jay.

Since he disappeared wild theories have flooded the internet and social media which MailOnline is not publishing but his mother Debbie fears he may be ‘being held against his will’.

Police have said they are keeping an open mind on what has happened and have used helicopters, drones and sniffer dogs as part of 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 each other in emotional scenes.

Choking back tears Warren, wearing a bucket hat, sunglasses and black t shirt, said: ‘He’s my son. I just want him back.’

The pair journeyed to a remote gorge above the village of Masca, 19 miles from the party resort of Playa de les Americas at an altitude of 3000ft to where Jay’s mobile phone last pinged on Monday morning.

They looked on as mountain rescue teams and civil protection units with high powered binoculars scanned the cactus strewn ravine looking for clues.

Friends of Jay who had flown in from Britain were also among the group and they 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 at the isolated 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 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 at around 8am on Monday morning from a secluded mountain pass in Masca.

The walk from Jay’s last known location to his accommodation would have taken about 11 hours on foot.

Lucy, who attended the NRG music festival with Jay, said he called 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 one per cent’.

This morning search teams attempting to locate Jay narrowed their efforts on small buildings close to where his phone last pinged in Tenerife.

Officers from the Guardia Civil in the Canary Island could be seen circling two structures at the bottom of a ravine in Rural de Teno Park on Sunday.

Efforts appeared to be solely focused on the one area after days of searches in the village of Masca and the surrounding landscape.

Those conducting 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.