Police have said a body has been found of missing woman Nicola Bulle following a tip-off from members of the public.
Bulle, 45, a mortgage adviser from Inskip, Lancashire, disappeared while walking his dog after dropping off his six and nine-year-old daughters at school more than three weeks ago, on Jan 27,
Lancashire Constabulary said on Sunday that no formal identification of the body had yet been made, but Bulley’s family had been informed.
On Sunday evening Bulley’s partner Paul Ansell spoke of his “pain” at the discovery. He told Inzamam Rashid of Sky News, “No words right now, just pain.” “We are all in this together, we have to be strong.”
The police force said it received a call at 11.36am on Sunday about a body in the River Wyre, close to Rawcliffe Road, where Bulli was last seen.
“An underwater search team and specialist officers subsequently visited the scene, entered the water and sadly recovered a body. No formal identification has yet been made,” Lancashire Constabulary said in a statement. So we are unable to say if it is Nicola Bulley at this time.
“The process of identifying the body is on. We are currently treating the death as unexplained. Nicola’s family have been informed of the development and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time. We want their privacy to be respected.”
The finding comes three days after the Lancashire force was heavily criticized for issuing a statement referring to Bulley’s struggle with alcohol and perimenopause.
It was these “weaknesses” that had been observed prior to her disappearance that led detectives to believe that she was more likely to have fallen into the river than to have been harmed by a third party.
The body was found just after a sharp bend in the river about half a mile from the village of St Michaels. Police divers were seen on Sunday morning searching an area of undergrowth on the riverbank several meters below the banking on Rawcliffe Road.
It appears that some time ago a dead tree had fallen into the river, with rotting reeds obscuring the water’s edge.
Within a week of her disappearance, police said they believed she had fallen into the river while walking her dog Willow with Wyre.
Piecing together CCTV footage, mobile phone data and sightings from people who knew the bully, detectives believed there was only a 10-minute window when she was out of sight. His phone, still connected to a work call, was found on a bench by the river, along with Willow’s harness.
Bulle’s disappearance sparked unusually strong public interest, with amateur detectives and YouTubers making disgusting shrine to the area as he shared his baseless theories on the matter.
served with some dispersal noticeThey were forced to leave the area, amid reports that properties near the river had been ransacked by detectives.
Rawcliffe Road was closed for several hours on Sunday so the body could be recovered. A steady stream of locals and crime scene tourists visited the scene as soon as the road reopened after seeing photos of the search on social media.
For more than three weeks in this small village in Lancashire, the community was desperate for news of a missing mother. Every other lamp-post and telegraph pole have laminated “missing” posters appealing for information about Bully’s disappearance.
Pictures of her smiling face were printed on banners at street intersections, in the hopes of reliving the memories of motorists who may have seen her on the morning she went missing.
A footbridge over the Wyre in St Michaels has become a focal point in the lookout for the bulls, where well-wishers are encouraged to leave messages on yellow ribbons tied to the ironwork. “We will never give up” reads one. “We all miss you so much. Please come home Nikki,” reads another.
A child’s drawing attached to a ribbon depicts a large red love heart and a bright yellow sun. An eight-year-old wrote: “I hope to see you today!”
But as the days passed and detectives stuck to their speculation that the river had claimed Bulli, the chances of her being found alive grew ever slimmer.
Although the identity of the body had not been confirmed on Sunday night, there was wide acceptance that it was almost certainly Bulle.
The Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, tweeted: “These are heartbreaking and disturbing developments. My thoughts are with Nicola’s family at this very difficult time.”
On Friday Braverman demanded that Lancashire Constabulary explain why it released personal information about the bully.
Police took the unusual step of revealing last week that Bulle had previously had “significant issues with alcohol brought on by ongoing struggles with menopause and these struggles had resurfaced in recent months”.
The force said a response car attended by both police and health professionals arrived at the family home on 10 January amid “reports of concern for the welfare”.
The disclosure of such personal information caused widespread consternation, with the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, saying he was “concerned” about the revelations.
Lancashire Constabulary acknowledged that “going into this level of detail about someone’s private life was an unusual step for us”, but said it was done to avoid speculation or misinterpretation.
In the midst of the investigation, the force released a statement containing “an overwhelming amount of commentary from so-called experts, misinformed speculation and conspiracy theories that are damaging to the investigation, the community of St Michael’s and worst of all, to Nicola’s family”.
The constabulary said the case had resulted in “the baseless and harmful abuse of innocent people, including witnesses and local businesses, which is completely unacceptable”.
As night fell on Sunday, some locals asked why it had taken so long to find the body when police divers and drones, including a private contractor, carried out an extensive search of the river bed using sonar technology , had failed to find any trace of the missing woman. ,
Earlier in the search, Ansell said he was “100%” certain she was not in the water. His family also felt that the police were in a hurry to jump to the conclusion that there was a possibility of him falling into the river.
Peter Faulding, chief executive of Specialist Group International, whose dive team joined the search Using sonar scanners for several days, said last week that they did not think Bulli was in the river.
She told the Daily Mail that if she had fallen down the bank, she would have easily been able to stand up and wait for help rather than being swept away by the current.
But she changed her mind after hearing about Bully’s alcoholism and his mental health issues.
“I can confirm that my usually reliable team and I were not provided with this critical information during our search, which would have changed search strategy,” he tweeted,
The hunt for Bully was one of the biggest searches for missing people in England for years, involving underwater search teams, drones, mounted police and a police helicopter.