Jay Slater 'turned down' lift home from Airbnb for 12-word reason - Birmingham Live

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Jay Slater "turned DOWN" a lift home from the man who took him back to his Airbnb on the night he vanished for a tragic reason. It has been three weeks since the apprentice bricklayer, aged 19, vanished in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands.

Former Met cop Mark Williams-Thomas revealing an update on the investigation on Sunday. Convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, says he offered Jay - who hails from Lancashire - a lift back to Los Cristianos before he vanished.

The Airbnb where Jay stayed with Ayub Qassim and an unnamed second man has sparked frenzied speculation in recent days after it emerged Qassim had spent time in jail previously. Jay, 19, apparently told Qassim: "I'm hungry. I need to get a scran. And the woman told me I can get a bus every 10 minutes to Los Cristianos."

READ MORE Jay Slater's phone may have been 'thrown' in Tenerife ravine where he vanished

Mark says that Ayub told him "no bus is coming", and offered to drive him after taking a nap, but the teen left anyway. The former Met detective - who helped in the hunt for Nicola Bulley last winter - said in the video update: "We know the two men that took Jay back to their rental apartment were key people to speak to.

"And as a result, I've now spoken in some detail to one of these men, Ayub Qassim, who is known as Johnny Vegas." He explained: “Ayub says, he says to him, mate, just chill out. I'll drop you off in town when I wake up properly.

“He [Jay] went, 'no, no, no, no. I'm hungry. I need to get a scran'. And the woman told me I can get a bus every 10 minutes to Los Cristianos." Mark explained: “He [Ayub] then says he gets a call from a friend of Jay's who says that he's in a ditch somewhere and he's been cut by a cactus.”

Mr Slater's family still have no answers to why he chose to leave with two older men, travelling by car for the hour-long journey north to the tiny village of Masca, instead of returning to the accommodation where he was staying in nearby Los Cristianos.

His last known location was in a deep gorge which leads down to the sea, which became the focal point for the 12-day police search as drones, dogs and helicopters were deployed in a bid to find the teenager, before it was called off last Sunday.