Jay Slater’s mum opens up about traumatic affect of trolls after Tenerife tragedy
Debbie Duncan suffered a mental breakdown after online trolls made over 300 million videos about her son Jay Slater, who died in Tenerife. Now she’s backing Jay’s Law to stop tragedy trolling
Debbie Duncan has revealed the grim abuse she received after her son Jay died (Image: ITV News)
Tragedy trolls pushed the mother of Jay Slater to a nervous breakdown after more than 300 million videos were created about her son following his disappearance in Tenerife. Debbie Duncan was devastated when Jay, 19, vanished on 17 June, 2024, during a trip to the Canary Island with mates to attend the NRG music festival – his first holiday away from his parents.
Now the mum has started a petition demanding ‘Jay’s Law’, to eliminate malicious online content after the horrific trolling she and her family endured. Following Jay’s disappearance, a comprehensive 29-day search was conducted before his body was found on 15 July, 2024. He had suffered a catastrophic fall while returning to his accommodation after a night out.
Debbie, 57, from Oswaldtwistle, who also has a son named Zak, 26, spoke to the Mirror of the relentless abuse she and her family have endured: “I’m surprised I’m not in a padded cell. We’ve been through hell and back at the hands of so-called online sleuths.
“It dehumanised our son. It’s been like living in a movie – but with no pause button. I’m a mother who has lost her son, but have been slagged off and treated like I’m subhuman. You name it, we’ve had it, on platforms from Facebook to Tiktok to YouTube. Prank calls and social media posts saying, ‘we know where Jay is’ and dragging his friends, and even his brother, into it – ‘Zak is too quiet, he knows more than he’s letting on’.”
When trolls discovered that one of Jay’s holiday friends had a conviction for drug dealing, the abuse escalated dramatically.
Debbie continued: “People began to make videos with voiceovers about Jay being in a drug-fuelled underworld. It was mad, a snowball, out of control. They were sending photographs of photoshopped images of Jay, making out he’d been tortured.”
After Jay’s body was found, the trolls shifted their approach. Debbie explained: “Trolls said it wasn’t him in the coffin and the only way to be sure was to dig him up.”
When a mate established a GoFundMe to help with search expenses, family accommodation in Tenerife and repatriation costs, Debbie recalls: “People said I was using it to pay drug debts. They said our whole family were drug dealers. It was just soul destroying, because nobody knows us, but yet we were judged in such a bad way. We live in a nice house, we’ve all worked, we all have jobs, there’s no criminals in our family.
“Trolls make up their own narrative. And then people comment on the content, slagging me off. I’ve visited the police station so many times, but there’s not much they can do. And I’ve reported so many videos, but they don’t get taken down.”
Unable to mourn properly, Debbie’s mental health plummeted. She said: “I wasn’t allowed to grieve when they found his body, because the white hot spotlight of social media pointed right at us. I had a full on mental breakdown.”
Working as a finance officer at a secondary school, she lost her position due to deteriorating mental health, adding: “Whatever I did or said was ripped to pieces.”
Ross Miller, CEO of Missing People, said: “Some of the content we’re seeing is truly vile. This has got to stop – right now.”
Already backed by her local MP Sarah Smith, Debbie has recently gained official government recognition for her Jay’s Law petition in the past week, after visiting the House of Commons and speaking to Kanishka Narayan, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for AI and Online Safety). She recounts: “He really listened. I had a meltdown, I was emotional, and I thought ‘this is what you need to see – you need to see what is actually happening to families.'”
