Nicola Bulley latest: Dive expert says search would have been different if they’d been told of health issues
An independent dive specialist involved in the search for Nicola Bulley said his team would have adopted a completely different strategy had police told them about the missing mother’s health problems.
With the new known information, he predicts that she is more likely to have washed up at sea or simply wandered off.
The 45-year-old disappeared while walking a dog along the River Wyre on January 27 – ten days later Specialist Group International was called in to search for her.
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They spent 72 hours searching an area of water near where the missing mother’s phone was found on a bench, with police investigators reportedly working on the hypothesis that she had accidentally fallen into the water, but at clear mind.
However, SGI boss Peter Faulding told the Mirror last night he was as surprised as anyone when Lancashire Police revealed Nicola was struggling.
He has also criticized the decision to make the sensitive information public in the first place.
The force said Nicola had previously had “significant” problems with alcohol, brought on by struggles with menopause, which have recently resurfaced.
Just 17 days before her disappearance, police had been at her address in Inskip after reports of concerns for her well-being.
Mr Faulding said he was not told about it when he arrived at the scene, although he was informed every day. “Normally I would receive this information to facilitate my job and provide the appropriate resources for this search,” he explained.
SGI had been working on the theory that she had slipped into the water and due to the weak current and many shoals, Mr Faulding said that if she had drowned her body would have been within 500 meters of the point of entry.
But a high-risk missing person who is potentially suicidal and may have poisoning changes that completely, he said.
As a result of the misinformation, Mr Faulding said he “strongly believed” she could not have slipped into the river and his three-day search proved it.
But adding the other factors, he said the phone left on the bench is a possible red herring, as if Nicola was disoriented she could have wandered further upriver and gone in there.
And if she jumped in, she probably would have swept out to sea.
“We would have extended our search further upstream. Just because you have a phone there doesn’t mean you have an entry point,” he continued.
If he was knowingly looking for a potential alcoholic, Mr Faulding and his team “would also be looking for other evidence,” he said.
“I would look for things like whiskey bottles because in a lot of suicides — if it’s a suicide — we find bottles of pills, we find whiskey bottles, half a bottle of whiskey,” he continued.
“I treated three female suicide victims last year and they all had pills and bottles of brandy or whiskey before they went in.
“If that’s the case, they might try to jump in and swim and be like, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to do that.’ So they start paddling and go downstream.
“When they drown they just fall in and drown, they tend to go straight down, they don’t float. Unless it is high tide and there was no high tide that day.”
Mr Faulding said if Nicola had walked back through the gate to where her dog Willow was found and towards the bridge – a CCTV blind spot – “she could have literally run away and no one would have seen her”.
The underwater forensics expert went on to ask if there was any other information being withheld by police.
“Do you know something else that you’re not telling us?” he said, “Is there another snippet of information here that we don’t actually know about?”
Since leaving the search last Wednesday, Mr Faulding has offered to return and use his expertise on a land search but said he had not heard from police.
He said: “My offer is open to Lancashire Police but I have had no communication with Lancs Police since we left. Our phone was silent. I’m not calling her because I don’t want to get involved, but we haven’t had any contact at all. We left the scene, that was the job done. We did what we were asked to do,” he added.
He went on to criticize the police for even publicly releasing the information.
“In my view… this information should not have been released this afternoon at all. It’s not fair,” Mr Faulding said.
“If we got that information from the search she is a vulnerable ‘misper’ which is normal for me to get that information and she had drinking problems etc, I won’t tell you.
“If I’m told to keep quiet, I keep it between us.
“My thoughts are with the family and I feel bad that information has been made public,” he added.
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