The teen went missing after a night out in the Canary Islands last year and his body was later found.
When 19-year-old British teenager Jay Slater vanished on a night out in Tenerife in the summer of 2024, it started a massive manhunt to try and find him.
Spanish cops confirmed a body had been found in the Juan Lopez ravine almost a month after his disappearance, revealing that the teen had accidentally fallen to his death. But 18 months on, the nightmare for his family still isn’t over, reports the Mirror.
For Jay’s mum Debbie Duncan the pain doesn’t end. Not only does she wake up every day to the heartbreak of having lost her son, but she also has to endure trolls accusing her of sending him to his death and covering up his ‘murder’.
She said: “I’ve been accused of all sorts – they say we knew why he was going to Tenerife and that he was going to get involved in selling drugs.
“That we covered up his murder, that it was all a set up and the GoFundMe was fake and he was going to reappear. One content creator even said, ‘How do you know it’s Jay that was in the coffin – he needs digging up’.
“It hurts. They don’t know our family or anything about us, but they’re allowed to say what they want.”
One stranger called Jay’s mum a “hypocritical, lying, irresponsible mother who sent her son to his death” and even accused her of ‘cashing in on his death’.
Debbie has reported the trolls but says that even if their posts are taken down – which isn’t very often – these content creators can just start a new page on social media, as there are no proper checks in place.
Now she wants social media to be regulated, so that other families don’t have to endure what she has had to go through. “Ofcom regulates what we watch on mainstream TV but doesn’t have any say on the social media side of things,” Debbie adds.
“It’s not just me, they even harass the professionals like the coroner – ripping them to pieces on social media. They’re reporting the facts but these trolls don’t want to know the facts. They just want to create their own narrative.”
“The people who do this hide behind screens, but what they say has real consequences for real families. I’m campaigning for Jay’s Law because something has to change. Families should be allowed to grieve in peace without being dragged through more pain. If this campaign can protect even one more family from going through what we have, it will have been worth it.”
Debbie has launched an official parliamentary petition for ‘Jay’s Law’, which would require social media platforms to remove false and malicious content aimed at bereaved families, with Ofcom given powers to enforce sanctions.
Hyndburn and Haslingden MP Sarah Smith is backing her constituent’s call for a new law to tackle online abuse targeting families grieving a loved one. She has been supporting Debbie and Jay’s family since his disappearance in Tenerife in June 2024, helping them deal with authorities at home and abroad, pressing tech companies to remove harmful content and calling for stronger regulation of social media platforms.
The campaign comes as a Channel 4 documentary also exposes the growing problem of ‘tragedy trolling.’ The Disappearance of Jay Slater shows how Nicola Bulley and the McCann families have also been targeted by online speculation and trolls, with people accusing family members of being involved in their disappearance or deaths.
Sarah says: “We can’t keep allowing grieving families to become targets for abuse and lies every time a tragedy happens. Debbie’s experience shows that the law hasn’t caught up with the reality of online behaviour. Platforms are too slow to act.
“If someone shouted these things on Debbie’s doorstep, they’d be arrested. If papers posted such baseless stories every single day about victims, they’d be in breach of the rules. But online, people get away with it. This has to change, we must stop tragedy trolling.
“Jay’s Law is about putting compassion and accountability at the heart of the online world. Families who have lost a loved one should be protected, not pursued. I’m backing Debbie’s campaign because it is time for Parliament, the tech companies and regulators to draw a line in the sand and say this ends here.”
Sarah and Debbie are now working with one another to organise a cross-party meeting of MPs and Ministers to discuss how Jay’s Law can be brought forward.
The meeting will look at how to strengthen protections for grieving families, ensure platforms are held accountable when they fail to act, and explore ways Ofcom and government departments can work together to deliver real change.
But there’s work to be done – Jay’s mum hopes the petition will gain 100,000 signatures and be debated in parliament – you can help her by signing it here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/742843
