An Accrington woman, who has been heavily involved in the search for missing teenager Jay Slater, has spoken out about the cruel trolling she has received.

Rachel Hargreaves, a family friend, has helped run Facebook page Jay Slater Missing which has since been joined by more than 590,000 people.

Rachel, whose son Brad was on holiday with Jay before he went missing, says cruel trolls have set up fake Facebook profiles pretending to be her dead mother.

She also says she has had to read “cruel and awful” posts about Jay and his loved ones.

Speaking to the Lancashire Telegraph, she said: “I set the Facebook group up because I was still in the UK and wanted to find out if anyone had any sightings of him.

“Now trolls are posting in the group. People are setting up fake profiles pretending to be me.

“A fake account was even made pretending to be my dead mother. The account added me on Facebook and sent a message.

“Normally, I am a strong person but when I saw the friend request from my mum it took me aback... I actually thought it was her for a second.”

Posting in the group has been temporarily paused and Rachel says the hateful messages are impacting the investigation.

She said: “The group has now had to be paused because people don’t have anything nice to say.

“I know people want updates but we have been advised to let [police get on with the investigation].

“The trolling is affecting the investigation and Spanish police are doing all they can. We don’t want anything to [get in the way of the investigation].”

“People making these horrible posts don’t know any factual information about what is happening over here.

“The posts are hurtful and it is causing more distress to all of us, especially Jay’s family. We are doing all we can over here and following all leads.

“It’s not been very nice and we have other things going on we don’t need to deal with that.

“Our loved ones who do know have our backs. Their messages have kept us going.”

Rachel, who is now in Tenerife helping to search for Jay, said she has been back in the mountains today, close to Jay’s last known location in Masca.

She has also been giving out items and resources, including clothes and food, to those searching for Jay.

Rachel said:  “We didn’t think we would be where we are now, so many days in and no information.

“Brad doesn’t want to go home without his friend. At the minute I have no plans of going home.

“We need to make sure Debbie (Jay’s mum) is looked after. I have been running around doing the things she can’t do.

“I’ve seen a few comments asking why she hasn’t been out searching herself – she physically doesn’t have the energy to do anything. I am being that person for her

“We won’t let [the trolling] get to us and we will keep going,”