Dive expert Peter Faulding and his team have completed their search of the River Wyre.
The specialists were called in to help with the search for missing mum-of-two Nicola Bulley. The diving expert said Nicola's family "need closure" but his team "have done the job we came here to do" and are now pulling out of the search.
Mr Faulding's independent Specialist Group International (SGI) firm were drafted in earlier this week to aid Lancashire Police divers with their high-tech sonar equipment. However, he told the Mirror this afternoon they have completed scouring the area of river from where Nicola's phone was found - and where investigators theorise she likely fell in on January 27.
READ MORE: Full list of eight unanswered questions in missing Nicola Bulley case
He said: "We’ve done our job and we’ve cleared the areas that we were tasked with by Lancashire Police and we are happy that there is nothing in that water." However, Mr Faulding emphasised that does not mean Nicola did not go into the water, with different search teams expanding out towards the estuary and sea at Morecambe.
On the eve of beginning their efforts on Sunday, he said he was confident if she had fallen in by the bench and drowned, her body would have been snagged within 500 metres. Mr Faulding continued: "Along with our searches and the police dive searches along that particular stretch of river from the weir up to the caravan park we are 100 percent confident that Nicola is not in that stretch of water.
"Going down river, we’ve searched an area to a bridge. We could not find anything at all in that stretch of water after many long hours. We’re doing this long days, and the police search continues to search the river down to the sea."
Asked how Nicola's husband Paul was today, Mr Faulding said he's "clearly upset". He added: "He was stunned, really. He just wants to know where his partner is. He’s an upset man.
"The family just wanted to come up and talk to me and see progress and how we’d done and Paul wanted to go up to the bench again to see the area. I walked up with Paul and explained to him this is where we’ve searched and I told Paul that we’d cleared from the weir up to about another mile up river, a long way up the river."
He said Nicola's family was "grateful" for the work SGI did - which they offered completely free of charge - but "it's difficult".
The specialist added: "They just want to know where Nicola is. They are all upset…they haven’t got any answers and no one’s got any answers to give them. All I can say, we’ve given them the answers they need to know from the river, I suppose. I’m glad we never found Nicola, we got no body and that’s good. If she’s alive, I don't know.
"It would be nice for the family to get some closure, some form of closure somehow."
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