1 year ago
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A body has been found in the search for the missing woman Nicola Bulley after a tip-off by members of the public, police have said.
Bulley, 45, a mortgage adviser from Inskip, Lancashire, vanished while walking her dog after dropping off her daughters, aged six and nine, at school more than three weeks ago, on 27 January.
Lancashire police said no formal identification had yet been carried out on the body but that Bulley’s family had been informed.
The force said it was called at 11.36am on Sunday to reports of a body in the River Wyre, close to Rawcliffe Road, within a mile of where Bulley was last seen.
“An underwater search team and specialist officers have subsequently attended the scene, entered the water and have sadly recovered a body. No formal identification has yet been carried out, so we are unable to say whether this is Nicola Bulley at this time,” Lancashire police said in a statement.
“Procedures to identify the body are ongoing. We are currently treating the death as unexplained.
“Nicola’s family have been informed of developments and our thoughts are with them at this most difficult of times. We ask that their privacy is respected.”
Within a week of her going missing, Lancashire police said they believed she had fallen into the river while walking her dog, Willow, along the River Wyre.
Piecing together CCTV footage, mobile phone data and sightings from people who knew Bulley, detectives believed there was only a 10-minute window when she was out of sight. Her phone, which was still connected to a work call, was found on a bench by the river, alongside Willow’s harness.
Bulley’s disappearance sparked unusually strong public interest, with amateur detectives and YouTubers making ghoulish pilgrimages to the area as they shared their unsubstantiated theories on the case.
Some were served with dispersal notices, forcing them to leave the area, amid reports that properties near to the river had been broken in by unqualified sleuths.
Three weeks after Bulley went missing, Lancashire police took the unusual step of revealing that she had previously had “significant issues with alcohol which were brought on by her ongoing struggles with the menopause and that these struggles had resurfaced over recent months.”
Officers had attended the family home on 10 January amid a “report of concern for welfare”, the force said.
The disclosure of such personal information prompted widespread consternation, with the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, saying he was “concerned” about the disclosures.
Lancashire police admitted it was “an unusual step for us to take to go into this level of detail about someone’s private life”, but said they did so to avoid speculation or misinterpretation.
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