Lancashire Police have faced further criticism in their search for missing Nicola Bulley, who’s body was found after a 23-day hunt.
Reports suggest the police force inexcusably turned down help from other constabularies during the search.
Bulley’s body was found less than a mile away from where she disappeared, but it took police more than three weeks to find her body.
Owen Humphreys / Family Handout
Lancashire Police are carrying out their own internal review of the search for Bulley.
Experts had previously cleared the area, finding nothing, with forensic search and rescue specialist Peter Faulding telling GB News he could “categorically say” Bulley’s body was not laying on the river bed when his team searched the River Wyre.
Speaking on Monday to Dan Wootton, Faulding said: “Police have been searching this river for three weeks with divers, with side scan sonar – the same equipment that we had – and river search teams plus dogs and Nicola had not been found.
“We searched that part of the river, the lower part of the river, for just four hours and I can categorically say that from the sonar footage, which I’ve since reviewed, Nicola was not laying on the river bed.”
He added: “There's no way she had gone in the river by the bench. It was too shallow, she wouldn't have drowned at that point”
A source from the search and rescue team revealed the police’s decision not to take on additional help from other forces, telling The Sun: "It’s inexcusable. To say they have covered off areas when a missing person is still missing is just bizarre.
“You go back and recast those areas. It’s completely strange to decline free resources.
“There could have been hundreds of trained people helping.
Flowers, and ribbons are tied to a bench by the River Wyre in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire, after police announced that the body recovered from the River Wyre on Sunday, was that of Nicola Bulley, who disappeared on January 27.
Dave Nelson
“Search people should have found her body — and it should have been dignified.”
The search teams have since been defended by a former police officer, who said the investigation was hampered by challenging conditions.
Search teams in the Nicola Bulley investigation did the best job they could in challenging conditions and will be “gutted” she was not found sooner, a former police officer has said.
Graham said that conditions in the River Wyre would have been challenging with poor visibility and Bulley’s body would have moved around during the time she was in the water.
He said he has spoken to underwater search experts who were supportive of what police and fire and rescue teams in Lancashire did.
Default… Add to lightbox Nicola Bulley missing Assistant Chief Constable Peter Lawson (right) of Lancashire Police with Detective Chief Superintendent Pauline Stables (left) speaking at a press conference outside Lancashire Police Headquarters in Hutton near Preston.
Owen Humphreys
The veteran former Metropolitan Police officer, who was in the force for 30 years, said: “That was a really difficult search.
“Really challenging conditions, you wouldn’t have been able to see much when you were underwater with the air tanks on, you’d have been almost doing it by touch, by feel.
“So it’s a really challenging searching environment. And it’s tidal, so it goes backwards and forwards.
“There’ll be channels and crevices and gaps in the riverbank as you go along where things can get lodged.”
Wettone said: “They’ll be gutted they didn’t find her in a week or so. If they think they missed her they’ll be even more devastated.
“Because they’re working to meet the needs of the family, not the press, not the public, not the TikTok detectives, they’re trying to get some resolution for a family.”
