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Nicola Bulley’s partner has opened up about the online obsession around her disappearance, calling it a “monster” that got out of control, and has revealed vile messages sent to him by trolls.
Speaking for the first time publicly since Ms Bulley’s death, Paul Ansell said that he and his family initially felt the social media fixation on the case would be beneficial in helping find the missing mother. It was thought that the heightened interest would keep pressure on Lancashire Police to maintain search efforts.
But the online interest soon became damaging, he says, as amateur “sleuths” on social media would share misinformation or ill-informed theories. In the most extreme cases, Mr Ansell would become the target of online hate.
“I think anything like that is a double-edged sword,” he added. “That’s the problem. You’re poking a monster.”
The father-of-two shared his experience for the BBC documentary, The Search for Nicola Bulley, releasing on Thursday 3 October.
Ms Bulley disappeared on 27 January 2023 while walking her dog in St Michael’s on Wyre, a town in Lancashire. She had just dropped her daughters off at school.
After nearly a month of searching in the case which attracted international attention, her body was found in a river on 19 February. An inquest the following June found her cause of death to be accidental drowning.
Speaking about the search, Mr Ansell told the BBC: “The nights were the hardest... because in the morning, the hope would be strong”
“The girls... the first thing that they do when they come out of school was come over and say ‘have we found mummy?’”
He describes the social media messages he received during the search, saying the online hate got worse as the search gained more attention.
“I was getting direct messages from people that I’ve never met - they don’t know me, they don’t know us, they don’t know Nikki,” Mr Ansell said.
He added that he was sent messages such as “you can’t hide”, “we know what you did” and “you b*****d”.
“On top of the trauma of the nightmare that we’re in, to then think that all these horrendous things are being said about me towards Nikki - everyone has a limit.”
