I've been trying to imagine the conversations at Lancashire Constabulary before cops decided to tell the world about Nicola Bulley’s reproductive health.
“Do we mention The Change before the boozing, Guv? Or are we saying ‘significant issues with alcohol brought on by her perimenopause’? Or ‘early menopause’…and is it actually early? How about ‘ongoing struggles with the menopause’?
“We need the Detective Super out there too... is Rebecca Smith on her way? Got to have a woman at the press conference. We can’t get this wrong.” But they did. Shockingly and unfathomably wrong.
In doing so they have muddied the waters of an already dismal investigation and set back the sensible conversations we’ve begun to have about menopause. The UK has 16 million women over 45 but only 134 officially recognised NHS menopause clinics.
But campaigners and celebrities such as Mariella Frostrup and Davina McCall made huge strides in raising awareness and highlighting the symptoms that can blight so many women’s lives.
They’ve been fighting for better training for doctors and greater support in the workplace – urging us to defeat the stigma and get comfortable talking about menopause. But Lancashire cops’ cack-handed bid to deflect criticism from themselves has let down women.
They have resurrected the old tropes that menopause equals hysteria/instability/shame/loss of self. Yet three weeks ago, when mum-of-two Nicola, 45, went missing, they told us there were “no significant issues with her health” and failed to flag up that she was a high-risk missing person.
They could easily have done so, without betraying the intimate details of her reproductive status. Instead they waited until the flak was flying then revealed Nicola’s confidential medical information, a move that smacked of victim-blaming.
Ex-victims’ commissioner Dame Vera Baird believes this will deter other people from reporting missing loved ones and such details would never have been released if this was man with alcohol issues brought on by erectile dysfunction.
Lancashire Constabulary is now conducting an internal review, but this doesn’t help Nicola or her family so we can only pray for a breakthrough in this baffling investigation.
And if cops hope to restore public confidence there are many more difficult conversations ahead.
