It is 'unlikely' that missing dog walker Nicola Bulley will be "found in the river", according to a specialist search diver, and "impossible for her to be in the sea". The mum has now been missing for 12 days after vanishing.
Diving group Specialist Group International (SGI) were drafted in by Lancashire police this week, according to the Mirror, and have been searching "large areas" of water in the River Wye. Founder Peter Faulding, who was yesterday pictured operating the firm's high-tech side scan sonar from a boat, spoke to GB News saying it is "unlikely" she will be found in the water.
He added: "We've been using the high frequency side scan sonar in this stretch today and it's so detailed I can even see every stone of it. She's not in this stretch.
READ: Nicola Bulley police reject suggestion she is victim of crime
"We also sonar-ed on the other side down yesterday in the tidal river. Now if you take a football on a tidal river…when the tide goes out the the ball will go down the stream and then as soon as the tide turns it will come back in again. It'll end up back at the same place.
"For Nicola to get out to the sea would be impossible, literally, it is such a long way."
Mr Faulding has previously said there are many confusing elements and before he joined the search on Monday told the Mirror he expected SGI's equipment to find Nicola in under an hour if she was in the river. He elaborated that all police have to go on right now is Nicola's phone, which was left on a bench overlooking where investigators suggest she may have fallen in.
Her dog was found wandering alone nearby, with her lead and harness removed.
Speaking to TalkTV on Monday, Mr Faulding said: "After 25 years of doing this kind of work, after hundreds of cases, I am well and truly baffled. When people drown they generally go down where they are.
"We normally find them within five to ten metres of where they went down even after a few days. This is the most baffling case that I have ever worked on.
The police have nothing to go on. "All they have is a mobile phone at the moment and they said it could possibly be a decoy." On the day she went missing, Nicola dropped her two daughters at school in St Michaels on Wyre on the morning of January 27 and then took springer spaniel Willow for a walk along a river towpath.
The last time she was seen was seen was around 9.10am, having logged into a work conference call at just after the hour. At 9.33am another dog walker found her phone on a bench, with a distressed Willow nearby.
At a press conference last night Supt Sally Riley, of Lancashire Police, said “every single” potential suspicion or criminal suggestion that had come in, had been looked at by detectives and discounted. She said: “I would like to reassure the community that nothing in this investigation so far, it has been checked out if it has come in suggesting crime, it has been checked and discounted.
“So every single potential third party line of inquiry and potential suspicious or criminal element has been looked at and discounted. It does remain our belief that Nicola sadly fell into the river and that this is a missing persons inquiry.”
Police launched a major search operation which has now entered its twelfth day.
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