Residents in village where Nicola Bulley vanished forced to hire private security

RESIDENTS in the village where Nicola Bulley vanished have been forced to draft in a private security company.

Police have pretty much cleared out of St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancs, as they search further downstream.

Armchair detectives are swarming the area instead and worried locals are paying for their own protection.

 Wyre council leader Michael Vincent said: “Residents have been watching TV in their living rooms and people have come up to their windows, peering in, trying the doors.

“It’s been terrifying for them.”

This came as dog walker who found Nicola Bulley’s phone spoke yesterday for the first time since the discovery — and says he immediately felt: “This is not right.”

Nicola, 45, was last seen three weeks ago yesterday walking her dog after dropping her two daughters off at school in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancs.

A local pensioner, known only as Ron, who initially found her abandoned mobile on a bench by the River Wyre, yesterday revisited the scene.

He told how he had previously seen Nicola and her partner Paul Ansell walking their dog ­Willow in the area. 

He added of the three-week-old case, which has seen Lancashire Police embroiled in controversy: “Each day something new comes out doesn’t it?”