A UK missing persons expert has shared the two "important things" the Spanish Civil Guard must do amid the search for Jay Slater.
On Monday, the 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire was reported missing in Tenerife by his friend following a concerning phone call.
READ MORE: A Timeline Of Jay Slater's Disappearance - What We Know So Far
The teenager had been visiting the Canary island as part of the NRG music festival, and was seen partying on Sunday night. However, rather than accompany his friend, Lucy Mae Law, back to their shared accommodation, Jay continued the evening with two men he's met that evening.
At around 8:15AM on Monday (June 17), Lucy Mae says she received a call from Jay. He was lost, thirsty, and told her that he was going to attempt to walk back to their shared apartment - a journey that would have taken him around 10 hours.
Around the same time, Jay passed a local woman and had a brief conversation about bus times.
Jay's phone then lost power. His last tracked location was in the Rural de Teno Park, near the village of Masca, a popular hiking area.
Lucy Mae reported Jay missing to local authorities less than an hour later at approximately 9:00AM.
With the search well into its sixth day on Saturday (June 22), Charlie Hedges - a former Thames Valley Police officer and one of the UK's foremost experts on missing persons - revealed the two things that the Spanish authorities need to prioritize.
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Speaking to The Sun, Hedges said that the first thing is to build up a profile of who Jay is - including his fitness level, personality, etc.
With the location of Jay's disappearance - the Rural de Teno Park - being a rocky and unforgiving mountainous landscape, Hedges says that this will allow the Civil Guard to determine the sort of choices the 19-year-old will have made that night.
On Friday, it was revealed that authorities had turned their focus to the nearby 2,000ft Masca ravine - and an in-depth profile would assess just how capable Jay would have been at navigating such an obstacle.
The second thing Hedges says the Spanish authorities need to do is address the social media sleuths and online speculation.
On Facebook, loved ones have created a group where they and others can share details about the ongoing search for the missing teen. As of this writing, the group boasts more than 485,000 followers.
However, this group - along with social media as a whole - has been plagued with comments with theories and speculation about what has happened to Jay.
Hedges says that authorities need to tell social media sleuths to back off, and urged people to be considerate of what the family and authorities are going through right now.
"Information from the public witnesses, and so on, can be critical. In these investigations, we would always be looking to find what other people may have seen," Hedges said. "Speculation and rumor doesn't help."
The former officers says people will make comments and "not even thinking about the impact that will have on the family, and those left behind are already in a very difficult situation".
He also deterred amateurs from traveling to the scene and getting involved in the search for Jay. "Ideally, the primary search should be left to professionals who have the right training, experience, and equipment to go into those areas," he explained. “And sometimes people can, with the right intentions, go into there and get themselves into difficulty and add to the problems.
"So it needs to be very much under the control of the local police."
Sharing his own thoughts on what he believes may have happened to Jay, Hedges says: "I think that would be the main working hypothesis that he walked off, got lost became dehydrated, and succumbed to the elements, or fall."
Loved ones have spoken out about online theories and hit back at Internet trolls.
On the Facebook group, the page admin, Rach Louise Harg - who has been posting on behalf of Jay's family - shared a damning message to "sick" trolls on Friday evening.
"Right I can’t believe some people are actually this sick in the head there are people hacking my accounts and jays family’s making it pure lies and pretending we are all in it," she wrote. "Jays missing and it’s absolutely soul destroying that we can’t find him his mum is absolutely broken it’s cruel [sic].
"All the groups are full of trolls and sicko jays mums getting a call every second."
Harg continued: "I have people saying that people are screenshot conversations that Isn’t me it’s other people sickos taking over my picture and pretending it’s me."
"Jay is 5 days missing we don’t know it he’s alone or dead stop honestly if anyone thinks we are all in on it then take me off comment here and I’ll remove you my self. Jay we will find you," she added.
In another post, Harg claims that somebody has also logged into Jay's Instagram account.
"Jays mums asked I post this.. for everyone asking who has logged into his instagram account it’s not him or her somebody else has logged into it [sic]," she typed in the group.
At this time, no further details have been provided.
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