It has been a case that has prompted what police described as “unprecedented” speculation, with senior officers faltering under the glare of the social media spotlight.
A week after Nicola Bulley first went missing near her home in Lancashire on 27 January, Lancashire constabulary said they believed she had most likely fallen in the River Wyre. Despite being armed with only the basic details of her disappearance, social media was quick to doubt that theory.
Officers revealed on Wednesday that the mother of two had been classed a “high risk” missing person due to “some significant issues with alcohol” stemming from “ongoing struggles with the menopause”.
They released the information, they said, in an attempt to reduce speculation about the 45-year-old’s disappearance, which had begun severely interfering with the investigation.
There was a near-immediate backlash as MPs and campaigners said the release of personal information about a missing person was “deeply troubling”.
A Home Office spokesperson said the home secretary and the policing minister – Suella Braverman and Chris Philp – were receiving regular updates on the handling of the case, “including why personal details about Nicola were briefed out at this stage of the investigation”.
Martyn Underhill, a former police officer and former police and crime commissioner for Dorset, said Lancashire constabulary’s handling of the communications had been a “car crash”.
“They’ve either not talked to anybody and left the space there to be filled by TikTok detectives and armchair detectives, and then moaned about the demand that’s placed on them, or they’ve done a press conference and thrown a grenade in there that no one saw coming.
“So I really do question the media strategy of Lancashire police, which has not helped at all in dealing with this juggernaut story.”
Graham Wettone, author of How to Be a Police Officer, who spent 30 years in the police, said officers were still learning how to manage social media and 24/7 news culture.
In the Bulley case, he said the vacuum created by not releasing information about the missing woman at the start of the case had left the police “playing catch up”. “I don’t think they’ve managed the media comms terribly well.”
Wettone said the police often expect people to read between the lines when it comes to information released.
Describing someone as high risk, saying they are not looking for a third party in connection with the disappearance and focusing on the river, can indicate there is more to the story than the public is initially being told but when people do not pick up on this, police feel pressure to “spoon feed” them.
It may be “unpalatable” to read that Bulley had problems with alcohol, he said, “but actually, it’s been in the background since day one”.
Nigel Green, a former journalist who has spent many years researching the often inharmonious relationship between the police and the press, said officers had been put in a difficult position in this case.
“They’ve had to tread very, very carefully,” he said. “On the issue of when and how they release that she’s a vulnerable person, they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.”
Green’s research has previously revealed that police were releasing information to the public about only 1% of crimes and were failing to tell local journalists about some of the most serious crimes happening in their area.
In recent years, police have generally become extremely cautious about releasing any information at all, he said, particularly because they are increasingly concerned about breaching people’s right to privacy, which is protected by the Human Rights Act.
“We have had some incredible cases up in Northumbria where they were looking for criminals, and they didn’t want to say what they had done because of their human rights.”
He added: “Although it’s unusual for me to say this, as someone who has been critical of the police in the past, I really have sympathy with them on this one.”
However, Emma Cunningham, senior lecturer in criminology at the University of East London, who is a policing expert, particularly on misogyny in the police, said Lancashire constabulary’s approach could lead to victim blaming and undermine public support for Bulley and her family.
“Where you do get issues around women and victim blaming, you also get the problems around justice in those cases. So it’s at the very least troubling.
“Coming out with those vulnerabilities in detail, I can’t see how that is supposed to have helped in any way. All it does is add to the negative connotation with police and lack of trust, particularly when it comes to women.”
• This article was amended on 17 February 2023. Martyn Underhill is a former police and crime commissioner for Dorset, not Devon.
