The former Police and Crime Commissioner who used to be in charge of Northumbria Police has said the Lancashire Constabulary team searching for Nicola Bulley had made a "sexist" error by making public her struggles with alcohol and the menopause.
Dame Vera Baird - who stepped down as the Government's Victim's Commissioner in 2022 - was previously Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) overseeing Northumbria Police from 2012 to 2019. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, she said she felt disclosing Nicola Bulley's vulnerabilities was a "dreadful error".
She also shared fears that it will stop people making complaints in the future, and said she wondered if such details would have been released if she was a man. Home Secretary Suella Braverman has also demanded an “explanation” from the force about why it disclosed those details on Wednesday, a source revealed.
Read more: Police identify body pulled from River Wyre as missing mum Nicola Bulley
Dame Vera said: "I’m afraid this is the biggest error that I have seen for quite a long time. It’s going to just, you know, very sadly, to undermine trust in the police yet further. I’m sure they would have explained themselves if they had an explanation… if it was relevant, it needed to be in a public domain at the start and it wasn’t. I mean, that is a really worrying error. It is frankly dreadful.
“I’m worried about future people making complaints. If one of your relatives has gone missing… and may have some weaknesses, as goodness knows we all do, then would you, first of all, go to the police at all as early as you should when you will have to tell them all the intimate details to help them with their inquiry – that’s essential.
“But would you if it’s going to be on the front page of The Sun the next day or a week later? And if you do, will you tell them these details?”
Asked if she felt the police would have revealed similar information about a missing man, she said she felt this unlikely. Dame Vera said: "Would we have had police officers saying, you know, if it was Nicholas, he’s been unfortunately tied down with alcohol because he’s been suffering from erectile dysfunction for the last few weeks?
“I think not. You can hear all the senior police officers squirming as I say it, I would have thought. It is a dreadful error to put this in the public domain for absolutely nothing and I’m afraid I think it’s as sexist as it comes."
On Thursday evening a source close to the Home Secretary Mrs Braverman said she had become "concerned" by police handling of the investigation into Ms Bulley's disappearance - and that she had been given explanation. The mortgage adviser and mother-of-two vanished while walking her springer spaniel Willow in the village of St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire, on January 27 after dropping her two daughters at school.
She has not been seen for three weeks. Lancashire Police have come under heavy criticism for revealing the details about her “vulnerabilities” in the weeks before her disappearance that they say made her “high risk”.
They later added in a statement that she had been struggling with alcohol issues and the menopause, and had stopped taking HRT medication.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it was assessing the information to determine whether an investigation would be necessary over the contact officers had with Ms Bulley on January 10. The referral comes after her family called for an end to the “speculation and rumours” about her private life.
The Home Office also said it was receiving regular updates from the force about its handling of the case – including “why personal details about Nicola were briefed out at this stage of the investigation”.
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