Tenerife hotspot where Jay died is WORSE a year on with bars offering ‘line with every drink' & escorts prowling streets

The Sun

6 hours ago

IT is just after 8pm and a tout is luring tourists into his bar with the promise of 'a free line' of cocaine with their first drink.
Two prostitutes in skin-tight bodycon dresses loiter outside while down the road, 'looky-looky' men circulate, offering Class-A drugs.
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A police car crawls past, its head-lights on the crowds of holiday-makers, but the officers inside seem blind to the blatant criminality.
These streets of sin are in notorious Tenerife party town Playa de las Americas, where British teen Jay Slater took a powerful cocktail of drugs before falling to his death exactly a year ago today.
Yet rather than this serve as a long overdue wake-up call for the area's seedy operators, the opposite has happened.
As Jay's family now mark the first anniversary of his death at the age of 19, The Sun witnessed at first hand how the debauchery shows no signs of abating.
Tourists now say the resort town's main drag, Veronica's Strip, has become such a den of vice it is no longer safe at night.
Student Georgina Haywood, 19, who had just flown in from Manchester with her boyfriend, told us: 'We went into a bar next to KFC and I wouldn't go back again.
'Looky-looky men were all around offering cheap drugs and we've heard if you buy them, they will mug you as soon as they see the cash.
'On the transfer bus over here we were talking to three men who told us they'd been robbed every time they'd come here.
'Off their heads'
'They said thieves steal your watch as they are talking to you and you don't even notice until it's too late.
'I wouldn't come here with a group of girls.
Ex-cop who hunted for Jay Slater says dealer pal MUST answer key questions
'It doesn't feel safe.
'Two girls were grabbed the other night and robbed for everything they had, and that's my biggest fear.
'At the bars they will keep giving you drinks until you're really drunk, and there will be men outside waiting for you to leave so they can pounce.
'If people are mixing drinks with drugs it's even worse.'
Georgina and partner Harry Griffin spent £500 on flights and a hotel — and another £300 on tickets for the three-day New Rave Generation (NRG) techno festival which Jay also attended.
Harry, 18, a petrol station attendant, added: 'You can see why a young lad could get into trouble out here.
'At the rave we didn't see one person who was just drinking.
'Everyone was off their head.
'You don't need to ask for drugs, you get offered all the time when walking down the street.
'We've had a great time so far but you have to keep your wits about you.
I wouldn't come here with a group of girls. It doesn't feel safe
Georgina Haywood, 19
'There was a person being sick outside the rave last night and we went inside to ask for a bottle of water for them — but they said no, it's their fault.
'In the UK, if you felt sick, they would help.
'Here, if you don't have money, they don't care.'
It was the prospect of a long weekend of hard partying that brought tragic Jay Slater to Canary Islands hot-spot Tenerife.
This was the first time the apprentice bricklayer had been abroad without family and he was with pals Brad Geoghegan, 19, and Lucy Mae Law, 18, although neither later attended the inquest into his death.
Before Jay went missing, he had attended an NRG party at Papagayo Beach Club, at the end of Veronica's Strip, and some of the final images posted of him show a care-free and smiling young man.
But he was also captured trying to get back on to his feet after tripping, and a local waitress recalled that he appeared to have overdone it, telling the Sun: 'He was unstable on his feet.
'I gave him water for free, as he didn't look well.'
Jay would have been well advised to head back to his hotel with Brad and Lucy, but instead he carried on partying and sent his pals a series of disturbing texts.
One included a photo of two knives concealed in his trousers, and a caption saying: 'In case it kicks off.'
In another, he claimed he had taken a watch from 'two Mali kids' and was on his way to sell it for £10,000.
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Jay, of Oswaldtwistle, Lancs, then made the fateful decision to get in a car with convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, 31, and another man called Steven Roccas, before travelling an hour north to a £40-a-night Airbnb property called Casa Abuela Tina, near the remote village of Masca.
Jay's last Snapchat post was at 7.30am on Monday, June 17 last year and showed he was at rugged beauty spot Parque Rural de Teno Buenavista del Norte.
At around 8.15am, he called Lucy to say he had missed his bus and was planning to make the 11-hour walk back to his accommodation — adding that he was dehydrated, had cut himself on a cactus and was running out of phone battery.
He then went missing, sparking endless conspiracy theories and a month-long search — as his parents, Debbie Duncan and Warren Slater, flew to Tenerife to help hunt for him.
His remains were finally found on July 15, not far from his last known location.
You don't need to ask for drugs, you get offered all the time when walking down the street.
Harry Griffin
Preston Coroner's Court later heard he had suffered a severe brain injury after falling to his death, and had traces of drugs in his system including cocaine, ketamine and MDMA.
Now a Sun probe can reveal the same narcotics were readily available last weekend at the NRG festival.
Within minutes of arriving on Veronica's Strip, I was approached by a street hustler and offered cocaine for 70 euros a gram.
'It's just carnage'
A hooker grabbed me and said: 'I make good sex.'
Inside a bar, where illegal nitrous- oxide balloons were being touted by bargirls for 15 euros each, a barman offered to sell The Sun's photographer a gram of coke for 60 euros.
Moving on down the strip, we were approached by a tout beckoning people inside his bar with the offer of 'a free line' with the first drink.
The same man then offered to sell a full gram — and when our reporter tried to make his excuses and leave, saying that he did not have any cash, he was told they would be happy to take a card payment.
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Teenagers were dancing wildly at the bar while a long queue formed inside the gents' toilet as a sweaty janitor grinned knowingly at the wide-eyed revellers waiting for their turn to use the cubicle, saying: 'It's happy hour tonight.'
The next day, Saturday, we joined thousands of young ravers who were packed into the Xanadu Equestrian Centre for the penultimate night of the NRG festival.
By 7pm, a number of sunburnt young men already seemed to be the worse for wear and struggling under unrelenting heat as the temperature remained at a steady 28C.
Lads with glazed eyes grabbed hold of each other for support while staggering toward the bar to buy bottles of water.
A friend was out last night and some people tried to pin him against a wall and take his wallet. Drugs are everywhere
Jordan Pollock
Others, topless and wearing satchels — just like Jay — were gasping for breath beneath the colonnades as the frenetic beat of the music continued to rattle their ribs.
Pipe-fitter Jordan Pollock, 19, had bought VIP tickets to NRG along with friends Robbie Harpie, 19, Craig Duff, 19, Lawson Duff, 19 and Raymond Dowse, 20.
Jordan, from Glasgow, said: 'It's a good night, as it's hard techno just like we listen to back home.
'But the health and safety out here is shocking — we paid £50 extra for our tickets and ended up being told to leave the stage because it was about to collapse.
'We were lucky that it didn't collapse while we were on it.
'A friend was out last night and some people tried to pin him against a wall and take his wallet.
'Drugs are everywhere.
'You can buy ecstasy, Mandy, Charlie and ketamine on the street, but most people pre-order what they want through social media.'
Retired chemical manufacturer Colin McMillan has been visiting Tenerife regularly for the past 15 years and has no doubt about what led to Jay's death.
Colin, 57, from Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, said: 'He was a victim of the drugs culture and it only seems to be getting worse, sadly.
'I love Tenerife because it has year-round sunshine and you can still buy a pint for just 2.5 euros.
'But Veronica's Strip is just carnage — pickpockets, fights and drugs.
'My friend was on a stag do there in April and when he left the bar to call his wife he was jumped by three guys who beat him up so badly they disconnected his eye socket.
'The police need to crack down and put a stop to the crime.
'But I've heard that all those bars are owned by the same powerful individual, who must have a lot of clout because they don't do anything about it.'
What happened to Jay Slater was an unimaginable tragedy for him and his family — but the longer I stayed in Playas de las Americas the more I sensed that it may not be long before this hedonistic party town claims another victim.
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