Friend who partied with Jay Slater before teenager went missing in Tenerife

 Friend who partied with Jay Slater before teenager went missing in Tenerife has received death threats from vicious trolls, his mother reveals

A friend seen partying with Jay Slater in Tenerife days before his mysterious disappearance has received death threats, his family revealed today.

Brandon Hodgson, 19, was pictured with his arm across Jay’s shoulders at the pool party on the Spanish holiday island during the second day of the NRG festival on June 15. 

Dressed in a distinctive orange T-shirt and with a bag across his chest, Hodgson had his arm around the apprentice bricklayer’s shoulders in the picture taken two days earlier. Today in the family’s first comments, his mother claimed he was being subjected to a ‘hate campaign’ on social media.

She likened his treatment to the false rumours which swirled around Nicola Bulley’s family after the mortgage adviser vanished while walking her spaniel last year.

The photograph also features Lucy Mae Law, the last friend to hear from Jay as he apparently attempted to walk back to the resort.

It has led to speculation over why – unlike Ms Law and Jay’s friend Bradley Hargreaves, also 19 - Hodgson has not spoken publicly about how Jay came to be separated from his friends, who all returned to the UK at the weekend.

Speaking at the family home in Brierfield, Lancashire, Hodgson’s mother Natalie insisted the teenager was helping Spanish police.

But she said he had no plans to break his silence and address speculation from amateur sleuths on social media following his return home. ‘He’s liaising with the police, and that’s all that matters,’ the IT consultant told MailOnline.

‘He’s got death threats and allsorts.’ Mrs Hodgson, 45, said the family were ‘not interested’ in whether members of the public wanted her son to share what he knew about the final hours before Jay vanished.

Saying they wanted to avoid what she described as a ‘hate campaign’ similar to that which hit Ms Bulley’s family after she vanished, she added: ‘He’s working with the police and that’s all he needs to do.’