I’m an ex cop – the way Lancashire Police have handled Nicola Bulley’s case is a mess, here’s what they should have done
WHENEVER a person disappears, the police have to assess whether they are at imminent risk of harm.
When I was in charge of a missing persons team in Lambeth, South London, thankfully 99 percent of the people turned up within eight hours.
In the case of Nicola Bulley — a mother-of-two with a recent history of health issues — the police rightly listed her as a high-risk case straight away.
Much of the initial response was good work.
Less than an hour and a half after Nicola’s springer spaniel Willow was discovered running free near the River Wyre in Lancashire, a drone was put up to search the area.
By early afternoon the National Police Air Service deployed thermal imaging, and sniffer dogs had been sent in.
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But as I have watched this case unfold over the past three weeks I have been shocked by the amateurish way in which Lancashire Police have handled Nicola’s disappearance.
The last 48 hours have left me astounded.
One statement after another put out by the beleaguered force has not only resulted in highly personal information about Nicola being made public, but also eroded trust in the investigation.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct is now probing Lancashire Police over their bungled approach to public relations.
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Early on in the case — on February 3 — officers told the public that there were “no significant issues involving Nicola’s health”.
Why did they say that when it was not true?
It is not unusual for the police to withhold some information about a missing person in case some of it might put the public off offering their support.
But if they knew about Nicola’s health issues at the time there no was no need to lie about them.
We now know she had health problems, which, we are now told, were believed to be linked to the menopause and the HRT treatment she was taking.
If police knew this information at the start, officers could have been honest about the health problems.
I don’t think people would have thought any less of Nicola if detectives had said from the outset that she was going through a difficult time.
But I would not have chosen to reveal that Nicola had problems with alcohol or the menopause.
This level of detail is far too personal.
Due to the possibility of these details leaking, the force decided to put out a statement on Wednesday that the police had been called to her family home in Inskip, Lancs, two weeks before she disappeared following “concerns about her welfare”.
This was very poorly worded, because it inevitably led to speculation that there had been a “domestic” with Nicola’s partner Paul Ansell, which was not the case.
They then compounded the error with all those unnecessary details about the menopause, in order to make clear that the police had been called to deal with Nicola, not Paul.
Now Nicola’s family have felt obliged to offer up even more private details, saying she was suffering from “brain fog, restless sleep” and “intense headaches”.
It’s a huge mess and Lancashire Police only have themselves to blame for this naive media management.
They could have been straight with the TV and newspapers from the start
If you give the media key information, such as the state of a missing person’s health, “off the record” — ie. not for publication — they will respect the request to keep it private.
Crucially, it will help journalists understand what is going on and prevent them trying to fill in the blanks.
But there is an attitude among senior officers these days to keep the Press at arm’s length, which has got far worse since the Leveson Inquiry severely restricted co-operation between the police and reporters.
The upper ranks are more concerned about avoiding bad publicity than solving crimes.
But the way Lancashire police handled this investigation looks very bad.
Nicola was at a wooden bench by the river before going missing and if someone else was with her they might have touched it too.
This vital forensic lead has been left for ghouls to take pictures on rather than being protected as a key piece of evidence.
The theory that Nicola went into the river may prove to be the correct one.
But officers focused for too long on the short stretch close to where her dog was found.
Fireman Anthony Knott was missing for 21 days over Christmas 2019 before his body appeared eight miles downstream in the river Ouse in East Sussex.
Lancashire Police seem to have left it too late to investigate the idea that Nicola floated out to the Irish Sea.
If she is out there, it is unlikely this mystery will ever be solved.
It’s one mistake after another.
Lancashire police were also too quick to focus on the idea that Nicola was in the river.
They should have kept at least one other theory open.
But they have been hampered by the amateur internet sleuths getting in the way.
This is not an entirely new problem for the police.
When I investigated the disappearance of a slum landlord in Brixton, South London, the family asked for a medium to contact the spirit world who told them “I can see him in the boot of a car”.
I got my officers to inspect the resident’s cars, which proved to be fruitless.
But when his body was found, it was in a suitcase in the boot of a car.
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Let’s keep an open mind in the case of Nicola Bulley.
For the sake of her two children, we have to hope she turns up alive and well.
