The final text message from Nicola Bulley has been released and it was sent just minutes before her disappearance.
It's been more than three weeks since Nicola vanished after dropping her two daughters off to school on January 27 in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire.
The 45-year-old was last seen at 9.10am while walking her dog, springer spaniel Willow, on her usual route along the River Wyre.
READ MORE - Last person to see Nicola Bulley on dog walk shares impression of her amid alcohol issues
Nicola's phone was later found on a bench and it was still logged on to a Microsoft Teams work call, which had ended at 9.30am.
The mortgage advisor's dog was also found wandering "bone dry" along the trail with her harness on the ground.
It has now emerged that a little over 10 minutes before her last sighting, Nicola sent a text message to a friend about meeting up sometime that week with her children.
A friend of Nicola's who lives in the village, who did not want to be named, told The Mirror: "She booked a playdate, 8.57, she sent a text message to a friend whose mortgage she had just recently signed off on to arrange for the girls to go for tea this week."
The friend was adamant that Nicola had no intention of voluntarily disappearing, saying "You wouldn’t have done that if you were going to get up and go missing."
The friend explained that the information regarding Nicola's last-known text was revealed during a meeting at the local village hall on Sunday morning before citizens set off on the first mass organised search.
The text revelation comes as Lancashire Police are set to conduct an internal review into their investigation into Nicola's disappearance, which will be led by the department's Head of Crime, Detective Chief Superintendent Pauline Stables.
Police have come in for criticism for what was deemed a "sexist" error when they disclosed information about Ms Bulley's reported struggles with alcohol and the menopause.
Former victims' commissioner Dame Vera Baird told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that she believed the force had made a "dreadful error" in releasing details of the missing mother-of-two's vulnerabilities.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct said it had received a referral from the force regarding the contact officers had with Ms Bulley on January 10 - before she went missing.
Information Commissioner John Edwards said he will be asking Lancashire Police about its decision to disclose Ms Bulley's struggles with alcohol and HRT.
He said in a statement: "Data protection law exists to ensure people's personal information is used properly and fairly. This includes ensuring personal details are not disclosed inappropriately.
"Given the high-profile nature of this case, we will be asking Lancashire Police to set out how they reached the decision to disclose this information in due course."
Ms Bulley's family have urged people to stop "making wild theories up" about her and called for an end to the "speculation and rumours" about her private life in a statement issued on Thursday.
On February 3, the force told the public of its main hypothesis that Ms Bulley had fallen into the River Wyre in a "10-minute window" between 9.10am and 9.20am on the day she disappeared.
The search for her has since been extended to the sea but she has still not been found.
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