By Marc Waddington, BBC News
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“Vile” trolling directed at Jay Slater’s relatives during the search for the 19-year-old has been “so hurtful” and affected the investigation, a charity boss close to the family has said.
Matt Searle, chief executive of missing person’s charity LBT Global, said he had been in close contact with the family ever since Mr Slater’s disappearance in Tenerife last month.
He said “armchair detectives” and “so-called experts” who had been “making a name for themselves” had got in the way of the search teams – and now intends to raise the matter with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Speaking after police confirmed the teenager’s body had been found, Mr Searle said: “If someone is missing, what parents will do is sit there and try to find every bit of information online, and there’s been all this stuff that’s been so hurtful for them.”
“But as well as the parents, all this has a huge impact on the investigation,” he added.
“It’s been unprecedented, and I think it has to stop. This behaviour is just not fair for the authorities or practitioners like ourselves, but most of all it’s not fair for the families who are going through the worst time ever.”
The discovery of a body in a ravine in the Masca area of northern Tenerife, close to the last known location of his mobile phone, brought to an end a month-long search for the apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle.
Family handout
Mr Searle said he had been on the phone to Mr Slater’s “devastated” mother Debbie Duncan when the identity of the remains was confirmed.
He said: “Debbie broke down on the phone when she heard that news. When the confirmation came through all hope was gone.
“There’s no looking back now, no ‘Maybe it’s the wrong person’ or ‘Maybe it’s going to change’, it’s there in the cold light of day.”
He said the family was keeping busy, making plans for Mr Slater’s funeral and repatriation, which he said his organisation would be helping with.
“Debbie has told me if she is not doing something she will just fall apart,” he said.
Mr Searle said the family was likely to travel back to the UK on the same plane as Mr Slater’s body.
And he said he would be speaking to the Home Secretary about the harmful nature of much of the online activity around the case.
“I’ve been in this job for over 20 years and I have worked on thousands of cases and I have never seen anything like this level,” he said.
“It seems like it’s ramped up recently and it’s something I feel passionately about, something I am going to be talking to the home secretary about in the coming weeks.”
