Loose Women's Denise Welch has caused controversy following comments she made about missing Lanashire woman Nicola Bulley.
The 45-year-old mum has been missing for two weeks and there is still no clear proof of what happened to her. She disappeared whilst walking her dog Willow on January 27 after dropping off her two daughters at school, writes The Mirror.
Nicola's phone was discovered on a bench overlooking the river and Willow was found wandering nearby. Investigators are keeping an open mind about what might of happened, but speculation continues to grow day by day on social media.
Police have urged people not to speculate or take the law in their own hands following Nicola's disappearance, but during yesterday's episode of Loose Women, panellist Denise caused controversy with her comments.
Speaking about the case, Denise said: "This is the problem, we’ve created globally all of these armchair detectives. And I am partly responsible because I’ve made no bones of the fact that in my mind I’m the 'Crime Minister'.
"You know I’m obsessed with true life crime. When I was young and you had the news at 6pm and a couple of newspapers, all of these things went on and you didn’t know very much about it.
"But now we see it played out in real life and Lincoln and I are responsible for it because we know now, well we think we know, a lot about forensics."
The 64-year-old admitted that she is guilty of speculating.
She added: "I was guilty of the other day, screaming at the television: ‘Why are people walking along that area? That should still be a crime scene. That should still be evidence.’ Then I thought 'hang on a minute, there’s obviously a reason why they haven’t kept that'.
"But you think that you know because you watch so many crime shows."
Lead investigator Superintendent Sally Riley previously urged the public not to "take the law into their own hands" or "do anything that would thwart" the investigation.
Urging people not to speculate, Supt Riley added: "Nor is it helpful if people, particularly if they come from outside the area, take it upon themselves to take the law into their own hands by trying to, for example, break into empty property."
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