Jay Slater's mother says retracing son's final steps brought 'more closure' as documentary examines Tenerife tragedy

The mother of Jay Slater, the 19-year-old British teenager who died while on holiday in Tenerife, has described walking back through the final movements of her son's life as an emotionally gruelling experience that nonetheless helped her family come to terms with his death. Debbie Duncan said the process, undertaken for a forthcoming television documentary, allowed her to examine the rugged terrain her son crossed in his last hours and to better understand the sequence of events that ended in tragedy.

Jay, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, vanished on 17 June 2024 after travelling to the Spanish island for a music festival in the resort of Playa de las Americas. His disappearance sparked a massive search operation that lasted 29 days before his body was eventually discovered. An inquest later concluded that he had died in a fall in what was described as a particularly dangerous area, suffering skull fractures and brain trauma that would have killed him instantly. The coroner ruled the death a tragic accident, finding no evidence of third-party involvement.

Speaking to BBC Radio Lancashire, Ms Duncan explained that retracing her son's route gave her a clearer grasp of the timeline, particularly the period between his last known location and his final communications in which he told others he did not know where he was and was lost. She said being able to look at the landscape in greater detail mattered a great deal to her, and that timing those final movements was personally important. The exercise forms part of the first episode of a Channel Five documentary series titled "Cause of Death", which is scheduled to air at 21:00 BST on Wednesday.

The programme examines both the intensive manhunt across Tenerife's mountainous interior and the enormous wave of social media speculation that surrounded the case. Appearing in the episode is forensic pathologist Richard Shepherd, who conducted Jay's postmortem examination after his body was repatriated to the United Kingdom. Ms Duncan said his presence in the documentary was valuable because he was able to discuss her son's injuries in straightforward language, making the medical findings easier for the family to absorb.

She acknowledged that returning to the island and revisiting the locations was very difficult and highly emotional, but said the experience had delivered a greater sense of resolution. She stressed that she had never for a moment doubted that Jay's death was an accident, a conclusion that was formally confirmed by the inquest. The family, she added, are each finding their own way of coping with the loss, with some members managing better than others on different days.

Since her son's death, Ms Duncan has tried to remain occupied, and she has built connections with other families who have lost children. She said speaking with bereaved parents does not necessarily lessen her pain, but it does provide reassurance that she is not alone in her grief. The shared experience of losing a child, she suggested, creates a form of understanding that is difficult to find elsewhere.

Her public campaigning has also continued. Last year she called for a new legal measure, widely referred to as Jay's Law, aimed at protecting grieving families from online abuse. The proposal would place obligations on technology companies, requiring them to remove misinformation and harmful content. The push followed a torrent of conspiracy theories and hostile commentary that circulated on social media after Jay disappeared, with users advancing unsubstantiated claims about what had happened to him.

Ms Duncan said the conspiracy theories were wild and deeply distressing, and she rejected the argument that curbing such content amounts to an attack on free speech. In her view, the behaviour crossed the line into outright bullying, with people ignoring established facts in favour of their own narratives. She indicated that the right people were listening to her campaign, though she did not specify which authorities or organisations had engaged with it.

Despite the closure she says she has gained, Ms Duncan admitted that life without Jay has not become any easier. In fact, she said, it seems to get harder as time goes on. Her comments underline the long and complicated nature of grief for families thrust into the public eye after a high-profile missing person case. The documentary is likely to renew attention on both the search effort and the online harassment the family endured, while offering viewers a more detailed account of the evidence that led investigators and the coroner to their conclusions.

The case drew international attention throughout the summer of 2024, as Spanish authorities, volunteers and specialist teams combed the difficult landscape near where Jay was last seen. The terrain, characterised by steep drops and uneven ground, was repeatedly cited as a factor complicating the search. The inquest's finding that he fell in a particularly dangerous area has been central to the family's acceptance of what happened, even as online speculation continued to challenge the official account.

For Ms Duncan, the documentary represents an opportunity to present what she regards as the facts of the case to a wider audience. She said she hopes that after watching it, people may be more willing to accept the conclusions reached by investigators and the coroner. The programme also serves as a record of a mother's attempt to reconstruct her son's last journey, a process she describes as painful but ultimately meaningful.