Leave Nicola Bulley’s partner alone: Friends of missing mother-of-two hit out at ‘disgusting’ social media conspiracy theories that her long-term boyfriend could have been involved in her disappearance and demand unfounded claims ‘stop immediately’

• Paul Ansell, 44, was immediately cleared by police at the start of investigation 
• Team of 40 detectives currently working on around 500 different lines of inquiry

A family friend of Nicola Bulley today urged the public to stop making ‘disgusting’ claims that her partner Paul Ansell was involved in her disappearance.

Mr Ansell, 44, was working from home when the mother-of-two, 45, vanished on Friday January 27 – and police reportedly have CCTV to prove he never left the house.

His partner’s phone and their springer spaniel were found by the River Wyre by a local, who called the school where Nicola and Paul’s two children attend. Office staff then informed Mr Ansell, who called the police and travelled straight to the riverside from their house.

Police still believe Nicola fell in the river while walking the couple’s dog Willow almost two weeks ago and insist there is no evidence she was abducted or harmed by a third party. Yet on social media there have been many posts claiming Mr Ansell is responsible despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, causing more pain to him and the family.

A friend of the couple, calling herself Tilly Ann, said: ‘Paul and Nikki both mostly work from home which is why he was at home that day. They have CCTV and there is a reason why Paul has never been a suspect.

Nicola Bulley (pictured with her partner Paul) vanished while walking her dog Willow along the riverbed on January 27, moments after dropping her two children off at school. She was last seen at 9.10am by a fellow dogwalker, before her phone and her pup’s harness were found on a nearby bench at around 9.20am, and the alarm was raised

READ MORE: ‘She may NEVER be found… no one knows. We have nothing’: Dive expert says Nicola Bulley is NOT in the River Wyre – as hunt for the missing mother enters 14th day

‘Family and friends need these accusations to stop immediately. The fact that I’ve had to write this is disgusting to be honest’.

If Mr Ansell was out of the house that morning he would have been seen, but he wasn’t, she said, adding: ‘They both do this walk regularly and Paul is very well known in the community and very well recognised’.

Describing the chain of events on Facebook she said that a person who found Willow and Nikki’s phone ‘called the school immediately at 10.50am. The school called Paul straight away who immediately called the police and drove straight to where Nikki was last seen and where Willow was.’ 

MailOnline has pinpointed the CCTV blackspots in St. Michael’s on Wyre close to the river where Nicola Bulley vanished almost a fortnight ago.

Police have finally admitted there is a ‘possibility’ she left the area on one path not covered by cameras.

It comes after the expert diver leading the river search for Nicola dramatically called it off yesterday to declare she is not in the water – as he branded the case ‘baffling’ and said he ‘did not know’ whether the mother-of-two was still alive. 

Peter Faulding, leader of underwater search experts Specialist Group International (SGI), said he had been ‘determined’ to find Nicola but that both he and her partner Paul were ‘relieved’ that he hadn’t. 

The pair met at the site of the search on Wednesday morning in St. Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire, where Mr Faulding confirmed to Paul that Nicola ‘is not here’. 

Mr Faulding added today: ‘She may never be found. We don’t know. No one knows. It is unusual because usually you have some evidence. 

Paul Ansell, 44, pictured with diving expert Peter Faulding who told the anxious father ‘she’s not here’, during a third extensive day of searching along the River Wyre in Lancashire on Wednesday 

Mr Faulding’s team are seen packing up their gear as they abandon the search for Nicola on Wednesday 

Police last night admitted that Nicola could have left the area with a third party when she vanished during a dog walk near the village of St. Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire, some 12 days ago (Pictured: Lancashire Police carrying inflatable Rib boats during the search for Nicola on Wednesday) 

READ MORE: Amateur sleuths are stopped from searching abandoned house for missing mother Nicola Bulley after police warned public not to ‘take the law into their own hands’

A group of men from Liverpool were apparently dispersed by police as they tried to search this property

‘Here we have nothing. We have nothing to go on apart from a phone and a harness.’ 

The SGI team left yesterday and will not be helping Lancashire Police search the ‘lower estuary’ of the River Wyre. The force told MailOnline their search remains ‘ongoing’ and that there was no deadline in place for it to end.

It comes after police admitted this week that Nicola could have left the area with a third party when she vanished during a walk with her springer spaniel Willow at around 9.20am on January 27.  

While police still maintain that she most likely fell into the river, superintendent Sally Riley, of Lancashire Police, said it remained a ‘possibility’ that the 45-year-old left the area by one path not covered by CCTV cameras – but added that ‘every single’ suspicion or criminal suggestion had so far been discounted. 

The path in question is crossed by the main road through the village, and officers are scrambling to trace dashcam footage from 700 drivers who passed along the route at the time she disappeared.

After reviewing other CCTV footage, police are confident that Nicola did not leave the field near the river via Rowanwater. 

Mr Faulding had said that if his team did not find Nicola in the water using his sonar equipment, then it was his belief that she had not been in the river, raising the prospect of a ‘third party’ involvement in the disappearance.

Announcing he had called off the search on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Faulding said: ‘We are happy that the area where Nicola’s phone was found and the harness, we’ve thoroughly searched it from all the way down to the weir and up to the bridge, about a mile upstream, and we’ve confirmed to Paul [her partner] that there’s nothing in that area. 

Mr Faulding said he was ‘determined’ to find Nicola but that he was also ‘relieved’ he did not find a body 

Paul Ansell, partner of Nicola Bulley views the spot on the River Wyre where she went missing with private search investigator Peter Faulding (Hi-Vis jacket)

The pair were joined by a senior detective and a friend of Nicola, who listened attentively as Mr Faulding explained how the water where police believe the 45-year-old drowned was particularly shallow 

‘That’s been dived by police dive teams three times as well… and on the day that Nicola went missing it was dived in the afternoon, with no sign of Nicola.’ 

He added: ‘I’ve worked on some weird cases, but this is a baffling case. For someone whose mobile phone was found there… I would’ve expected Nicola to be found that afternoon by the police dive team, normally down in the water, but there was no sign of her.’

He said he simply ‘didn’t know’ where Nicola was, adding: ‘I was determined to find Nicola, but one good thing is that I didn’t want to find a body, so I’m happy we haven’t found Nicola’s body, which can lead to other areas, so we don’t know if Nicola is alive, this is just a baffling case.

‘After the end of today, we’ve done what we’ve come here to do, we’ve cleared the area for the police and the family, we can say that in the top section of river and some of the section going down towards the sea, that she’s not in that part.’ 

He said he could not comment on ‘further down the estuary’ because his team was not searching that area. 

‘We just want to bring some form of closure,’ he added, ‘And I say again that I’m happy we never found a body and Paul is relieved we found nothing up there.’ 

Lancashire Police gather their river searching equipment on the River Wyre in Lancashire on Wednesday 

Specialist Group International continue their search of a stretch of the River Wyre where Nicola Bulley went missing at St Michael’s on Wyre

Paul and Mr Faulding were yesterday joined by a senior detective and a friend of Nicola, who listened attentively as Mr Faulding explained how the water where police believe she drowned was particularly shallow. 

‘This is not a spectator sport’: Twisted tourists ‘taking selfies on bench where Nicola left her phone’ are told to stay at home 

A local parish council chairman has called for respect after people ‘travelled for miles to take selfies on the bench’ where missing Nicola Bulley’s phone was found.

The riverside path where the 45-year-old was last seen walking her Springer spaniel, Willow, has a steady footfall but in recent days, the paths have been rammed with visitors who have travelled to the village to watch the search in action, LancsLive reports.

Visitors have reportedly travelled from as far afield as Lancaster and Manchester.

People have also reportedly been posing for selfies with missing posters that have been put up in St Michael’s on Wyre, as well as with the bench where Nicola’s phone was found. 

Chairman of St Michael’s Parish Council, Giles Phillips, condemned those taking ghoulish selfies and said ‘it is not a spectator sport’.

Giles said in recent days the village has seen an increase in families visiting the riverside to watch the search operation. 

He said: ‘It would be helpful if people could let the authorities do their jobs. We don’t want anyone to hinder the investigation. This is not a spectator sport.

‘Most of the area is private land – the public access is very minimal and can’t absorb the numbers of people who are coming every day. They aren’t searching for somebody – they are watching someone else search for somebody. We would rather people stayed home or took a day trip to the Lake District.’

Mr Faulding was convinced that if he was to find a body it would have been in the area close to where police say Nicola fell into the water.

The expert took MailOnline to the scene and pointed out that the water was fairly shallow – no deeper than 3ft – and covered with jagged rocks.

He said: ‘If this is where Nicola fell in you can see that the water is not particularly deep. There are lots of rocks and if she was in the water she would be able to grab hold of them.

‘No one heard any shouts for help and I just can’t see how she could drown here. 

‘The only possibility is that she fell head first and was knocked out on the rocks, but I don’t see how that could happen.’

Lancashire Police are working on the hypothesis that Nicola slipped into the water and drowned.

They have extended their search 10 miles away towards Fleetwood and the Irish Sea in the belief her body has been swept away from the point of entry in the village of St Michael’s on the Wyre.

Mr Faulding disputes the police theory that the body could have ended up so far away and in the Irish Sea.

Based on his 20 years of experience in finding drowning victims he insisted her body would have remained at the bottom of the river for several days and police would have found her.

His suggestion that a ‘third party’ could be involved and abducted the mother-of-two has put him at loggerheads with the police investigation.

The SGI team packed up their equipment and left the scene on Wednesday after they failed to find any evidence of her body in the water. 

They had used their sonar to look around a weir about 200 metres from the main search area.

He said earlier on Wednesday: ‘We want to sonar the first stretch of the river and if nothing is there then I am happy there is nothing there.

‘My opinion is had Nicola gone in by that bench she would have gone to the bottom and drifted a couple of meters. The police divers who are very professional thoroughly searched that stretch of river and she wasn’t there. There is hardly any current and in my experience, bodies do not move very far.

‘It is not feasible that she could have drifted 15km, not in my experience and this type of tidal river. Things get washed in and washed out. It is very shallow. There is nowhere to go.’

The SGI team had been using a side scan sonar and Mr Faulding said the images it produces are crystal clear.

Paul Ansell, 44, pictured with diving expert Peter Faulding as he gave him updates on the search

Paul Ansell (right,  partner of Nicola Bulley with private search investigator Peter Faulding (Hi-Vis jacket) after visiting the spot on the River Wyre where they believe Nicola disappeared

The partner of missing mother-of-two Nicola Bulley, Paul Ansell, (centre in sunglasses) shakes hands with Peter Faulding (in Hi-Vis), the underwater search expert called in by the family to help with the search

Paul Ansell, partner of Nicola Bulley, views the spot on the River Wyre where she went missing on January 27

Mr Faulding remains convinced that if he is to find a body it will be in the area close to where police say Nicola fell into the water (Pictured: Paul Ansell, far right, partner of Nicola Bulley views the spot on the River Wyre where she went missing)

Workers from a private underwater search and recovery company, Specialist Group International, including chief executive Peter Faulding (top), analyse their sonar machine

Peter Faulding (pictured) has said if his team cannot locate Nicola in the river then she is not there and he would not rule out ‘third-party involvement’ in her disappearance

‘You can see every stick and stone and can give a guarantee that from the bench to the weir she is not there.’

The side scan sonar being used by SGI creates an image of the river bed and is often used in marine archaeology, environmental science and by the military.

It works by beaming out high frequency sound pulses in a wide fan shape from an dinghy floating on the surface.

READ MORE: When will divers finish search for Nicola Bulley and why was phone left behind? 10 key questions as hunt for the mother-of-two continues 

The reflected pulses are recorded and processed to produce an image of the river bed and identify different materials and textures.

A member of his team told Mail Online that unlike in many movies where drowning victims are seen floating on the surface of the water that does not happen in real life.

‘When someone drowns and we find them a couple of days later they are almost always on the bottom of the water. Their arms and legs are dangling down, a big like an Octopus shape.

‘The body will remain on the bottom of the river for four or five days, and then depending on the current might start to drift.

‘Unlike what people see in films the body does not instantly float to the surface.’

It comes after some critics accused Mr Faulding of having an ‘ulterior motive’ since making his feelings known, but the forensic expert rebuked the ‘keyboard warriors’, adding that he has devoted his life to trying to find missing people. 

In a sign of tensions between police and Mr Faulding, police superintendent Sally Riley this week stressed that he was not party to all the details of their wider investigation.

She said: ‘Our search has not found Nicola in the river and then a re-search in parts by SGI has found the same. That does not mean… that Nicola has not been in the river.

‘In the light of other inquiries being discounted from the investigation so far… clearly our main belief is that Nicola did fall into the river.

‘Clearly Mr Faulding isn’t included within all the investigation detail any more than the members of the public are that I’m briefing through these sorts of press conferences.’

Mr Faulding later demanded that he be granted such access, adding: ‘If there’s any more facts that we don’t know about – normally we work along the side of the police and if you haven’t got the facts then you can’t conduct a proper search, it is very difficult without that information. Normally, I’m privy to that information… it would be useful to know.’ 

It comes as police have extended the search for Nicola towards the sea after still finding no concrete evidence she fell into the river, while friend of the family Heather Gibbons was among the growing number to question their theory. 

She told MailOnline: ‘It’s natural for everyone to have speculation, because the truth is, in this, nothing is making sense.’

Abandoned house on the River Wyre, next to the area where Nicola Bulley was last seen on January 27. Vigilantes have been warned to stop breaking into derelict homes in a bid to try and solve the case

Lancashire Police Superintendent Sally Riley pictured speaking to the media at St Michael’s on Wyre Village Hall on Tuesday. She told reporters yesterday that Mr Faulding does not know all the facts of the case 

Heather Gibbons (pictured) has joined Nicola’s family and friends in questioning Lancashire Police’s theory

While SGI divers concentrated on the area where Nicola’s phone was found on a bench, finding nothing of interest, other dive teams continue to look further upriver towards Fleetwood and the Irish Sea.

Meanwhile, Supt Riley said the police investigation by her officers had been reviewed by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and they had not found any new line of inquiry that should be pursued.

The police chief also warned ‘amateur detectives’ they would be arrested if they were found to be breaking the law while carrying out their own searches.

Abandoned and derelict buildings along the river have been broken into by members of the public carrying out their own investigations.

She added: ‘There are some properties along the riverside which are empty or derelict and whilst it may be well-intentioned that people think that that could be a line of inquiry, I would ask them to desist from doing that.

‘In some cases it may be criminal if they are breaking in, causing damage or committing a burglary.

‘We have gone into derelict property – including ones on the riverside, (and) any under renovation that were empty – with the permission of those owners and their knowledge.’ 

‘Because there is no criminal element yet identified, and we don’t expect there to be in this inquiry, then we’re not starting to go into houses because that’s not where the inquiry is leading us,’ she added.

Seemingly at odds with police, Mr Faulding previously said it was unlikely that Nicola was in the fast flowing River Wyre – adding that it was ‘impossible’ for the 45-year-old to have made it to the sea.

However, The Times reports that he told the newspaper it was in fact possible her body could have reached the sea by now due to the river’s meandering course.

The bay is around 15 kilometres away from where Nicola is believed to have disappeared and where the River Wyre flows into the sea. 

Mr Faulding also slammed ‘keyboard warriors’ who have accused him of having an ‘ulterior motive’ for joining the search last night.

He said: ‘This is what you get for trying to help people. I have given my life to helping families looking for missing loved ones. 

Nicola Bulley – a 45-year-old mother-of-two – went missing while walking her dog near the River Wyre on January 27

Nicola went missing 13 days ago and was last seen on the bank of the River Wyre in St Michael’s on Wyre with police still unclear about what has happened to her

‘Do our job searching in dark murky waters for a drowning victims. My team and I don’t deserve this trash.’

Mr Faulding has also reportedly been ticked off by police over speculating about the disappearance after he said there could be third party involvement. 

Meanwhile, Lancashire Police  continued to rule out any ‘suspicious or criminal’ element on Tuesday.

‘For Nicola to get out to sea would be impossible, literally, it’s such a long way in the 11 days. It’s an awful long way down,’ Mr Faulding said.

Police revealed a team of 40 detectives are currently working on around 500 different lines of inquiry and more than 700 drivers who travelled through the village around the time of Nicola’s disappearance are being traced. 

Speaking at a press conference Tuesday, Supt Sally Riley said police had been supplied with an ‘unprecedented’ amount of information and leads.

She added: ‘At the moment there are around 500 active pieces of information and lines of inquiry that we’re working on to try and find answers for Nicola’s family.

‘This is normal in a missing person inquiry and does not indicate that there is any suspicious element to this story.

‘The inquiry team remains fully open-minded to any information that may indicate where Nicola is or what happened to her.’

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