The inquiry into the death of 19-year-old Jay Slater heard he had drugs in his system and the cause of his death was a head injury consistent with that of a fall

Jay Slater’s inquest is underway(Image: Instagram)

Jay Slater was “off his head on drugs” and asked a festival-goer to break an MDMA pill in half, according to a witness in the 19-year-old’s inquest.

The apprentice bricklayer, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was found in a ravine in Rural Parc de Teno, in Tenerife, on July 15 last year. He had disappeared after attending the NRG music festival in Playa de las Americas, telling friends he was lost, thirsty and only had 1% battery left on his phone.

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His body was found four weeks later in an inaccessible ravine close to where his mobile last pinged. The teen had travelled to an Airbnb in the remote Masca village in north-west Tenerife in the early hours of June 17, following an NRG event.

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Jay’s mum Debbie was heartbroken by the discovery of her son’s body(Image: Facebook)

Now Josh Forshaw, who met Jay and his friends as they queued to board the plane from Manchester to Tenerife has addressed the inquest. Josh shared contact details with Jay and met the group at the music festival.

He told the inquest that Jay “seemed dead happy” and that he was “off his head on drugs”. Josh, who said he had drunk “10 to 15 vodka shots” that night, said that Jay asked him to break an MDMA pill in half for him and friend Brad Hargreaves.

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MDMA is also known as ecstasy. The inquiry also found that drugs were found in Jay’s system at his time of death. Toxicologist Dr Stephanie Martin told the inquest that, although tests when someone who has been dead for some time are “extremely challenging”, she determined that Jay had ecstasy in his system at the time of his death when the toxicology report was carried out.

Also present in his system was a cocaine metabolite, which is present when cocaine is taken at the same time as the consumption of alcohol.

Drugs were found in Jay’s body(Image: Family Handout/LBT Global/PA)

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The doctor explained that it is impossible to say exactly when Jay took the drugs but it is “likely within a day or so of his death”. At the time his body was found, the Spanish authorities also carried out their own toxicology tests, when ketamine was found in Jay’s system.

Dr Martin added: “ The only difference between our results and their results is that they found ketamine and its metabolites.” The doctor said that one “possible explanation” for why the Spanish authorities found ketamine in Jay’s system but toxicology tests carried out in the UK did not is “the time between the two post mortem investigations”.

Adding to this, the inquiry heard that the cause of Jay’s death was down to a head injury consistent with that of a fall. The pathologist working on the case has provided a medical cause of Jay’s death as “head injury”.