This film sets the record straight on the teenager’s tragic death – that it needed to be made is proof true crime is out of control
In our new age of conspiracy theories, anything and everything is ripe for picking apart by the online mob – even the tragic death of a teenager while on holiday. That is the grim message of The Disappearance of Jay Slater, Channel 4’s sober account of how the life of the 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire came to a tragic end in Tenerife last year.
The film is made with the co-operation of his family and is a moving testament to the dead teen’s memory. But it is also a plea from his loved ones for the amateur sleuths and TikTokkers who have made their loss so much more painful to please leave them alone.
It is depressing that such a straightforward account of his death even needs to be made. Yet such was the outpouring of misinformation after Slater went missing in June 2024 that it is necessary to set the record straight. His family become understandably distraught as they describe how Jay vanished while attending a music festival in the Canary Islands with friends. Initially a mystery, the case was ultimately solved when his body was found: having gone to a house after spending the evening in a nightclub, he had fallen from a height and suffered fatal head injuries. Case closed.
Ten years ago, the Slater case might have been a minor news item. But in this era of true crime podcasts and insatiable online sleuths, it sparked a feeding frenzy. According to them, Slater had stolen a Rolex from the wrong person and suffered the consequence. He was killed by drug dealers. Or by people close to him. Or he wasn’t dead at all, and the whole thing was a hoax.
A year on, his family is still understandably devastated by the way their son has been portrayed. “Watch thief, drug dealer… My son hasn’t gone to Tenerife, been there 10 days and turned into Pablo Escobar,” says his father, Warren.
The theories grew crazier and crazier. ITV journalist Ben Chapman recalls returning home from covering the case and being collared by other parents at the school gates. “The number of people coming up and wanting to talk to me – as if I was part of the conspiracy,” he says. “Online sleuths had lost sight of the fact that this was somebody’s son that had disappeared.”
Channel 4 picks apart the conspiracy gossip by retracing Slater’s steps – from his arrival in Tenerife for the holiday of a lifetime to his post-club trek to a house some 30 miles away. But it doesn’t sanitise Slater and notes that in 2021 he was one of a gang of youths who assaulted a man with a machete, receiving an 18-month community service sentence. The documentary is also frank about him having drunk alcohol and taken ecstasy on the night he vanished.
The film-makers are given access to the post-mortem carried out on the repatriated body as part of the investigation into his death by UK authorities. Coroner James Adeley says that holding an inquiry into Slater’s death has been made more difficult because of the online interest. Witnesses are reluctant to come forward because they fear they will draw the attention of the TikTok hordes. “Social media has made obtaining evidence more difficult,” he says.
There is, concludes Adeley, “no evidence of any form of third party involvement”. He explains that “the terrain is appalling out there…. This is simply a young man who did not appreciate the circumstances he was getting himself into. In the mountain, in these conditions, that can be fatal.”
The film ends on a heartbreaking note with homemade footage of a baby Slater singing karaoke with his mum. She sways him side to side, and he giggles. This is how his family would like to remember him.
They will no doubt hope that this sensation-free film lays to rest the conspiracy theories and that the true crime vultures find another victim. The painful truth is that they are unlikely to do so.
‘The Disappearance of Jay Slater’ is streaming on Channel 4
