Coronation Street star Vicky Entwistle issues desperate appeal to help find Jay Slater after Brit, 19, goes missing after music festival in Tenerife

A Coronation Street star has issued a desperate plea to help find Jay Slater after the 19-year-old Briton went missing after a music festival in Tenerife. 

Vicky Entwistle, who famously played Janice Battersby on the ITV soap, says she 'hope to God they find him' as she prays for the missing apprentice bricklayer's return. 

Jay is the 55-year-old actress' godmother's grandson and she said she knows 'the authorities are pulling out all the stops to find him' and 'that gives us some hope he will be found'. 

She posted one of the missing posters of Jay on X/Twitter alongside a message that says: 'My God Mother's Grandson has gone missing. His Mother has flown out 7pm. To join the police search. Hope to God they find him. Please pray for him.'

Jay travelled to the Canary Islands for the three-day 'New Rave Generation' (NRG) music festival with Lucy Mae and another friend last week.

On Sunday night, Jay, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, left the party in South Tenerife with 'two English lads he met at a party' and went to their place 'for a few beers'.

But he disappeared after making a phone call to Lucy at around 8am on Monday, in which he sounded disorientated, was in desperate need of water and only had one per cent battery left on his phone.

His last known location was a mountainous area of Teno Rural Park, some 10 hours' walk away from his accommodation in the southern part of the island. He has not been seen or heard from since.

Jay's mother Debbie Duncan and brother Zak flew out to Tenerife on Tuesday after police broke the news of his disappearance in the early hours of the morning.

After touching down yesterday, she said she is 'beside herself with worry'.

Speaking from the south of the island where her son had been staying, mother Debbie said: 'I'm obviously beside myself with worry which is why I've flown out here with my eldest son to do anything we can to help.

'We're just praying the police or someone finds Jay. I know there's a mountain rescue team out and a helicopter.

'Nothing's ever going to be enough when your youngest son's gone missing but it sounds as if the police here are taking this very seriously and doing the best job they can.'

Debbie added: 'He'd been at a three-day festival so he would have consumed a fair bit of alcohol but Jay was snapchatting with friends before he went missing and seemed very compos mentis.

'I just think it was a question of him not knowing the island well enough because it was his first time here and being a bit disorientated when it came to distances and not realising it was a 10-hour walk from where he went missing to his holiday accommodation.

'I know the last place he spoke to his friend Lucy from was in the mountains and I think the police have got a more precise location now.'

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News about Jay's disappearance, a scared Lucy said: 'He's gone on a night out, he's gone to a friend's house, someone that he has met on holiday.

'One of the people he has met has hired a car out of here, so he's driven them back to his apartment and Jay has gone there not realising how far away it is.

'He's ended up out in the middle of nowhere. Jay was obviously thinking he would be able to get home from there.

'But then in the morning he's set off walking, using his Maps on his phone and ended up in the middle of mountains with nothing around.

'He rang me saying his phone was on 1 per cent, he said ''I don't know where I am, I need a drink and my phone is about to die''.'

Lucy said she is frantically searching for her friend on the island, having made several reports to local police in Tenerife and made contact with the British Embassy.

Meanwhile back in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, Jay's stepdad Andy Watson told how police officers knocked on their door in the early hours of the morning today to inform them of the teen's predicament.

'It was about 2.30am in the early,' Andy Watson, 63, told LancsLive. 'When the police said ''the best thing you can do is get yourself out there'' we knew it was bad. This was his first holiday on his own. I'm just hoping he's gone to another party.'

Andy later said in an interview with the Sun: 'It's really worrying. It feels like a blur at the moment.

'Jay is very street wise and he's no mug but if it was dark and he had no touch on his phone he could have gone the wrong way and become more lost than he was.'

As widespread efforts continue to locate him, including national media attention and an official Facebook group set up for updates, cruel fraudsters have leapt on the opportunity and set up fake fundraisers in his name.

With around seven bogus GoFundMe pages set up so far, Jay's family have taken to social media to alert concerned strangers and say they are not connected to them.

Debbie revealed how she has received vile calls from pranksters claiming to have kidnapped her son.

Using hidden numbers, the twisted Brits with 'northern accents' have phoned her to say they are holding her son ransom.

She said: 'Some of the phone calls I've been getting have been horrible. I just don't know why people would want to do things like this.'

Ms Duncan has also seen trolls posting false claims that Jay has been found safe and well, despite the search efforts still ongoing.