Nicola Bulley: ‘No sign of fall’ near river as parents fear dog walker was taken

The parents of Nicola Bulley said there was “no sign” the mother of two fell near the River Wyre as they fear someone may have taken her.

Ms Bulley’s parents, known only as Ernest, 73, and Dot, 72, vowed “we will never stop looking for her”.

She was last seen on Friday morning at 9.15am as she walked along a footpath to a river while still logged on to a conference call from a bench where she had been out walking her pet dog Willow.

They said the disappearance of the 45-year-old mum from Inskip, Lancashire, was totally out of character, Ernest saying she had no health problems and was in good spirits enjoying her job.

Ms Bulley’s parents recalled the last time they saw their daughter last Thursday after they picked up her two children.

“We took them home, Nicola had had a meeting with her boss in Garstang and she said ‘can you stay a bit later because I have an important client coming in on Zoom’. We said 'no problem' and stayed,” Ernest told the Mirror.

“She had done her work and she was very upbeat about getting her mortgage sorted.

“I said we better go now and Nicola came to the front door, and I gave her a kiss and told her I loved her and that was the last conversation I had with her.”

Ernest said the family was informed by police that there were no signs that Ms Bulley had fallen into the water, prompting fears that she may have been taken.

“I asked the Sergeant from Fleetwood a few days ago, ‘is there any chance of her being taken’ and she said ‘I don't think that's the case’.

“I said ‘how can you know that?’, it's such an isolated area, the only way that has happened is if it was someone who knew her.”

While Nicola's family live in hope of her being found, Ernest confessed their worst fears: “We just dread to think we will never see her again, if the worst came to the worst and she was never found, how will we deal with that for the rest of our lives.”

It comes after an “old abandoned” house has been searched in a bid to locate missing dog walker Nicola Bulley.

Teams scoured the area near Garstang Road in St Michael’s on Wyre in Lancashire as they tried to trace the 45-year-old.

Kev Camplin, of Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue, said the grounds of a large unoccupied country house, along with a long stretch of the river, including wooded areas and water margins were searched.

He said: “The abandoned house is right opposite the bench on the other side of the river, over a 10ft garden wall. It’s quite posh.

“We didn’t go into the house, as a volunteer search and rescue team we don’t actually go into buildings. We might go into a barn or something.

“We leave that to the police. While the team was searching the grounds, the owner was there for some reason, and we asked him to go in and he had a quick look around and she wasn’t there.”

Friends of Ms Bulley also said she would “never leave her two girls”.

Heather Gibbons, a friend, told Sky News: “You go from being hopeful to heartbroken, and just trying to be strong, because all we want is to find her for her girls and for Paul.”

She added: “You want to hold on to the hope that no news is good news.

“But knowing Nikki, we just know that if she could be at home with her girls, we very firmly believe that’s where she would be. Her family are everything.”

Another friend, Emma White, described Ms Bulley as “the kindest, beautiful, lovely human being inside and out”, adding that her partner, Paul, was “being strong as possible” for the couple’s two children, aged nine and six.

“We don’t know why she’s gone missing, where she is, we just want her home,” she said.