The British teenager Jay Slater had taken drugs and alcohol and was a 14-hour walk away from his accommodation before his disappearance sparked a four-week search in Tenerife, an inquest into his death heard.
The 19-year-old had taken ecstasy pills, cocaine and possibly ketamine, along with alcohol, before he went to an Airbnb with two strangers, one of his friends told a court on Thursday. Bradley Geoghegan, who had gone on holiday with Slater, said Slater had video-called him after he left the apartment on the morning of 17 June last year.
“I said, ‘put your maps on to see how far you were’,” Geoghegan told Preston coroner’s court. “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.’”
The witness said he did not think his friend had any money on him, and taxis in Tenerife insisted on payment upfront before carrying a fare.
Geoghegan said he did not believe Slater was fearful or under duress. “No. I think he probably got there and thought, ‘Why am I here?’, sobered up and decided to come back,” he said.
Slater, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was holidaying on the Spanish island and had been to the NRG music festival with friends at the Papagayo Tenerife nightclub in the resort district of Playa de las Américas. He vanished the morning after going to the Airbnb and was reported missing on 18 June.
Evidence heard during the inquest suggested he had left the holiday let, and after failing to get a bus or taxi, attempted to walk back to his own apartment and had fallen from a height into a ravine.
A mass search was launched before his body was found by a mountain rescue team from the Spanish civil guard, in a steep and inaccessible area near the village of Masca, on 15 July.
Slater’s mother, Debbie Duncan, had asked for the inquest into his death to be resumed on Thursday after a number of witnesses failed to give evidence at the last hearing in May.
On the night out he had received phone messages from friends telling him to go home as he was “off his head”. More messages from friends warned him about the “boiling” heat of the day, but activity data on his phone stopped at 8.51am, suggesting his phone battery had run out.
The hearing in May had heard evidence from witnesses including a toxicology expert. The court was told analysis showed traces of drugs, including cocaine, ketamine and ecstasy, along with alcohol, were found in Slater’s body.
The Home Office pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd said his postmortem examination gave Slater’s cause of death as head injuries. His body showed no evidence of restraint or assault, with the pattern of injuries consistent with a fall from a height.
