Jay Slater died after falling onto rocks

Jay Slater’s death was caused by trauma injuries consistent with falling in a rocky area, officials said as they formally identified his remains.

On Tuesday, teams were seen still searching the area where the 19-year-old was found as locals claimed it was “hard to understand how he got there”.

The Canary Islands High Court of Justice said it had identified the teenager’s body with the use of fingerprint technology after the remains were discovered near the village of Masca in Tenerife on Monday.

Debbie Duncan, Mr Slater’s mother, said in a statement: “I just can’t believe it – we’re here with the embassy staff waiting for an update and now it’s come – the worst news.”

The 55-year-old added: “I just can’t believe this could happen to my beautiful boy. Our hearts are broken.”

LBT Global, a charity which provides crisis support for British families overseas, previously said the remains were found with the young man’s clothes and possessions near his last known location.

The Spanish Civil Guard said Mr Slater, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, could have fallen in the steep and inaccessible area where his body was discovered.

Following a preliminary post-mortem examination, a Canary Islands High Court of Justice spokesman said: “We have positively identified [Jay Slater].

“We can confirm from fingerprints that the body is that of Jay Slater and the death was due to polytrauma compatible with a fall in a rocky zone.”

Polytrauma is a medical term which describes multiple fractures and injuries to body organs.

Mountain rescue workers, volunteers, drones, dogs and helicopters spent weeks hunting for the teenager, who had been visiting Tenerife with friends to attend the NRG music festival.

Video footage released by Spanish police showed people clambering across near-vertical rocky mountainsides covered in thick vegetation while looking for Mr Slater.

He left the festival sometime between 3am and 6am on Sunday June 16 in the car of two other British men he had met earlier that evening, and stayed at an Airbnb property they had rented on the island’s west side near Masca.

Ofelia Medina Hernandez, the owner of the cottage, saw him outside just before 8am the following morning.

After she told him the next bus to his resort in Los Cristianos, in the south of the island, would not come for two hours, Mr Slater decided to start walking. She drove past the teenager around 10 minutes later, and said he was walking “quite fast”.

Twenty minutes later, Mr Slater phoned his friend Lucy Mae Law, who had been with him at the music festival, saying he was lost, thirsty, had one per cent charge left on his phone’s battery and had cut his leg on a cactus.

She called the police, and the apprentice bricklayer’s phone was last recorded at a point north of the cottage he had stayed at.

Search efforts continued

After 12 days of searching, the Guardia Civil said its hunt for the teenager had “ended” but the case remained open, promising that “any new clues will be investigated”.

Mr Slater’s family, who flew to Tenerife, continued their search for him after police said official efforts were ceasing

Yet the Guardia Civil later said it had continued efforts to locate him.

A family source told The Sun that Mr Slater’s mother was “completely devastated”.

They added: “It’s the news they’ve all been dreading. She has a lot of questions which she hopes will be answered in the coming days.

“It hasn’t completely sunk in yet. The hardest thing for her is to hear he was found so close to the original search site. It’s hard to take.

“It means it’s entirely possible they have walked past his body whilst searching for him.

“It seems incredible so many people walked that area and yet he was so close. As we have seen with mountainous terrain and ravines, it does happen no matter how hard that is to believe.”

Funeral arrangements

Matthew Searle, from LBT Global, said the charity was working with the family to organise the return of Mr Slater’s remains to the UK.

He said: “The announcement does seem to confirm that Jay died of injuries consistent with an accidental fall from a considerable height. There will of course be many more hurdles for the family to face in the coming days and we will work with them to make this horrific time as easy as possible.

“We are working with the family now to sort out the next steps of taking Jay home, recovery of his belongings and laying him to rest back. We will not be releasing details of travel timings or funeral arrangements at this time and ask again for privacy for the family.

“I ask now that this is the end of all the hurtful comments on social media and elsewhere.”

Meanwhile, the remote valley where Jay was found was searched again by rescue teams on Tuesday, Sky News reported.

One local told the broadcaster that it was “exceptionally difficult” to safely navigate down the valley on foot.

Another resident said: “It is sad - the spot where they found him shows he had gone a long way into the ravine.

“It is hard to understand how he got there.”

More than half a million people joined a Facebook group where bizarre theories about Mr Slater’s disappearance were posted. Ms Duncan described them as “awful comments” that were “very distressing” for the family to read.

Some media commentators suggested the police had pretended to shut down the initial search in the hope that amateur detectives would pack up and go home.