Partner of Nicola Bulley visits scene as diving expert quits search

The partner of missing mother-of-two Nicola Bulley on Wednesday visited the riverbank where she vanished.

Paul Ansell spent around 10 minutes close to a bench overlooking the River Wyre in St Michael’s on Wyre, as the search continued in the Lancashire village.

But he was told by underwater search expert Paul Faulding, called in by the family to help in the hunt, that Ms Bulley, 45, had still not been found.

Mr Faulding said he was “baffled” after failing to find the mortgage adviser who vanished on 27 January, after dropping her two daughters – aged six and nine – at school, then taking her springer spaniel Willow for a walk along the river.

Ms Bulley’s phone was left on the bench near the river, still connected to a work call, with the dog lead and harness close by.

Mr Faulding and his team, from rescue operation Specialist Group International, have been searching the area around the bench, the “entry point” where it is believed by police Ms Bulley fell in the water.

But on the third day of his search, Mr Faulding said efforts had proved “negative”.

He said: “Well, Paul’s extremely obviously upset, he wanted to go and see where the original entry point was again, and the water’s a bit lower than it was originally when Nicola went missing.

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“And it’s just, it’s not a nice place to be. And I’m just trying to explain what work we’re doing. And give him some confidence that Nicola is not in that river over there.

“Normally we find them, this is an unusual situation. And hopefully Nicola will appear somewhere or pop up somewhere, I don’t know. But with that, I’m totally baffled by this one, to be honest.

“Normally a drowning victim goes to the bottom. There was a bit of flow on the river that day. But normally we recover them within a few metres.”

He said his team had one small section of the river to check again later on Wednesday but that afterwards, his involvement in the search would be over.

Search teams from Lancashire Police and the Coastguard, including divers, are now focusing on the 16km (10 miles) or so of river downstream of the bench, where the River Wyre empties into the sea at Morecambe Bay.

On Tuesday, Superintendent Sally Riley, of Lancashire Police, said detectives had looked at “every single” potential suspicion or criminal suggestion that had come in and discounted them.

She spoke after suggestions Ms Bulley‘s phone could be a “decoy” and questions were raised about gaps in CCTV coverage of the area where she vanished from.

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The lead and harness for Willow, her springer spaniel dog, were also left on or close to the bench.

Police said it was still a “possibility” she left the area by one path not covered by cameras which is crossed by the main road through the village, and officers were trying to trace dashcam footage from 700 drivers who passed along the road at the time she disappeared, around 9.20am.

Mr Faulding has said if his team does not find Ms Bulley in the water using his sonar equipment, then he believes she has not been in the river and raised “third party” involvement in the disappearance.

But Ms Riley told reporters at a press conference in the village, that Mr Faulding is not included in “all the investigation detail”.

Additional reporting by PA