A body found in the River Wyre in Lancashire is that of missing mum-of-two Nicola Bulley, police have confirmed this evening. Her body was found on Sunday morning, around a mile from where Nicola, 45, went missing on January 27.
At a press conference on Monday, Lancashire Police assistant chief constable Peter Lawson confirmed the tragic news. Nicola, a mortgage advisor, had been walking her dog in St Michael’s on Wyre after dropping her daughters, aged six and nine, at school.
Mr Lawson said: "Sadly, we are now able to confirm that yesterday we recovered Nicola Bulley from the River Wyre. Nicola's family have been informed and are of course devastated. Our thoughts are with them at this time as well as with all her loved ones and the wider community.
"We recognise the huge impact that Nicola's disappearance has had on her family and friends, but also on the people of St Michael's. We would like to thank all of those who have helped during what has been a hugely complex and highly emotional investigation. Today's development is not the outcome any of us would have wanted, but we hope that it can at least start to provide some answers for Nicola's loved ones, who remain foremost in our thoughts."
In a statement read out at the press conference, Nicola's family said they "will never be able to comprehend what Nikki had gone through in her last moments", adding "that will never leave us".
The case is now being handled by HM Coroner.
It is understood that a man and a woman walking their dog discovered Nicola's body and called police. Lancashire Constabulary said officers were called to the River Wyre close to Rawcliffe Road at around 11.35am.
Nicola's body was found on an unremarkable stretch of the river, just past a slight bend, a mile or so outside the village, close to where a tree had fallen on its side half in and half outside the water, with branches and undergrowth partially submerged. Police had earlier erected a tent and cordoned off the lane while police divers were called in, but the road was reopened around three hours later once Nicola's body was recovered.
Underwater search expert Peter Faulding, who was called in by Nicola's family to help find her, found no trace of her in the section of river searched by his team and police divers over three days. On Sunday, Mr Faulding said he had only cleared the area around the bench where her mobile phone was found, and that the tidal section beyond the weir was “an open book”, according to MailOnline.
“All I can say is when we searched she was not on the bottom of that river,” he said. “We weren’t searching the reeds, our job was to search the water.”
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The investigation into Nicola's disappearance has attracted widespread speculation as well as criticism of the police response. The force came under fire after making her struggles with alcohol and peri-menopause public three weeks after she vanished.
In a press conference on Wednesday, they revealed the mother-of-two was classed as a “high-risk” missing person immediately after Mr Ansell reported her disappearance, “based on a number of specific vulnerabilities”.
They later added in a statement that Nicola, from Inskip in Lancashire, had stopped taking her HRT medication. A public backlash and interventions from the Government and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper followed, with Lancashire Constabulary confirming a date had been set for an internal review into the investigation.
A spokeswoman said: “A review of the investigation is diarised and will be conducted by our head of crime detective Chief Superintendent Pauline Stables.”
