The dog walker who discovered Nicola Bulley's phone on a park bench has said he "knew something wasn't right" when he found it. The man, only referred to as Ron, was on a dog walk when he came across the phone on a bench near the River Wyre on January 27 - the same day that Nicola disappeared.
He initially believed the phone had been innocently left on the bench by a fellow dog walker that had popped to the toilet. Ron spoke of how he recognised the people on the phone's wallpaper, which featured Nicola and her partner Paul Ansell. While he didn't know the couple by name, he knew them as fellow dog walkers, MirrorOnline reports.
He told Sky News: "I got to about this red brick building here and I thought 'this is not right'. Then it was just a progression of things happening, you know.
"Because of the wallpaper on the phone we found out who the couple were, and the school was contacted and Paul arrived."
Nicola has now been missing for three weeks and one day. Earlier this week police revealed details of Nicola's personal "struggle" with the menopause and how it has been the catalyst in causing "issues with alcohol".
In a press conference police said Nicola was categorised as "high risk" because of "a number of specific vulnerabilities". They did not elaborate, which only sparked more speculation despite the initial purpose of the press conference being to squash unhelpful theories.
But with a few hours police disclosed Nicola had suffered "some significant issues with alcohol" in the past, which due to the menopause had resurfaced in recent months. Outrage has been caused by the disclosure of this personal information, and Nicola's family have since released a statement in response.
They said: "We, as a family, believe that the public focus has become distracted from finding Nikki, and more about speculation and rumours into her and Paul’s private life.
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"As a family, we were aware beforehand that Lancashire Police, last night, released a statement with some personal details about our Nikki. The police know the truth about Nikki and now the public need to focus on finding her.
"Due to the peri menopause Nikki suffered with significant side effects such as brain fog, restless sleep and was taking HRT to help but this was giving her intense headaches which caused Nikki to stop taking the HRT thinking that may have helped her but only ended up causing this crisis.
"The public focus has to be on finding her and not making up wild theories about her personal life. Despite what some media outlets and individuals are suggesting, we are being updated daily and receive support from our family liaison officers.
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