Jay slater, the British teenager who went missing in Tenerife last summer, died by accident after falling down a ravine, a coroner concluded.
The 19-year-old was attempting a 14-hour walk home from a night out drinking and taking drugs, Preston Coroner’s Court has heard.
Mr Slater, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, and friends had been to the NRG music festival at the Papagayo nightclub in the resort of Playa de las Americas on June 16 last year.
It’s thought he left to go to an Airbnb holiday flat near Masca in the early hours of the next morning, before setting off on the long walk back.
The inquest heard he spoke to and messaged friends while on the walk, saying he had no water and his battery was running out.
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As temperatures grew he left the road and ended up in the ravine, where his body was found a month later on July 15.
A post mortem showed he suffered severe head injuries from a fall.
Concluding a two-day inquest into his death, Dr James Adeley, senior coroner for Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen, said: ‘Jay fell at a particularly dangerous area in difficult terrain.
‘He fell approximately 20 to 25 metres, suffering skull fractures and brain trauma from which he would have died instantaneously. Jay Dean Slater died an accidental death.
‘This is a tragic death of a young man.’
There is no evidence to suggest anyone else was involved, Dr Adeley said, or that he had been threatened, assaulted, was under duress or in fear for his safety.
Speaking to Mr Slater’s family, who sat in court, he said he hoped the ‘examination of facts rather than conjecture’ during the hearing had been some consolation to them.
Earlier in the inquest, his mother Debbie Duncan gave a tearful tribute to her son saying: ‘He was very loved and our hearts are broken.
‘Our lives will never be the same without Jay in it.’
His friends, who were on the holiday with him, also spoke at the inquest. One of them, Bradley Geoghegan, said Mr Slater had taken ecstasy pills, and possibly ketamine, along with cocaine and alcohol, on the night out before he disappeared.
He told the coroner that the following morning he got a video call from Mr Slater, who was walking along a road and was still ‘under the influence’.
Mr Geoghegan said: ‘I said put your maps on to see how far you were. It was like a 14-hour walk or an hour drive. I said, ‘Get a taxi back’, then he just goes, “I will ring you back”.’
Coroner Dr James Adeley asked the witness: ‘Did you get the impression he was in any way threatened or fearful, or under duress in a difficult situation?’
Mr Geoghegan replied: ‘No. I think he probably got there and thought, ‘Why am I here?’, sobered up and decided to come back.’
Another friend, Lucy Law, called him around 8.30am and had sent him a message saying: ‘Go back to wherever the f*** you just came from before it gets boiling.’
She said on the call she asked him: “What on earth are you doing? “Where are you?
(Picture: EPA)
‘He was just, “I’m in the middle of the mountains”.’
She asked him what he could see, and he replied: ‘Nothing. Literally nothing. There’s literally just mountains.’
Mr Slater also said he needed a drink and asked if cactus are poisonous.
Ms Law added: ‘By this stage, I’m panicking.’
A further friend, Brandon Hodgson, said in a statement to Spanish police, that Mr Slater contacted him on a video call around 8.30am showing him surrounded by mountains, with his phone battery down to 3%.
Mr Hodgson said his friend was ‘laughing and joking’ and got the impression he was ‘out of his mind’.
He told police: ‘Jay is mentally very child-like’.
Reports from Spanish authorities were read out by the coroner, Dr Adeley, including from the local Mountain Rescue services.
It said they searched for Mr Slater for 29 days, with helicopters, dogs, drones and rescue teams involved.
They eventually found his body in the treacherous Juan Lopez Ravine, an area described as having sheer cliffs and deep dense undergrowth.
The area was rarely used has it has no water and can only be accessed using machetes to cut through the vegetation, they said.
Around 20 metres above where he was discovered, lay Mr Slater’s Armani bag with his phone and nitrous oxide gas canisters inside.
The Spanish authorities said they could not explain why Mr Slater ‘took a chance’ to leave the road to descend down the ravine.
One possible explanation, they added, was that the sea can be seen from the head of the ravine and he may have been looking to see if he could reach a beach to get help.
The report said: ‘It would be easy to slip on the rocks and fall into the void.
‘The death of the missing person must have occurred as a result of an accidental fall.’
More to come.
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