A search-and-rescue expert helping to look for Nicola Bulley has claimed that he would have found her already if the police's 'working hypothesis' of her falling in the river was correct.
Nicola, 45, vanished on Friday January 27, while walking her dog Willow along the River Wyre, in the Lancashire village of St Michael's. She had previously dropped off her daughters, aged six and nine, at school and was on her usual walk when she disappeared.
Her phone - still connected to a call for her job as a mortgage adviser - was found on a bench overlooking the river. Peter Faulding's Specialist Internationalist Group firm has since searched a stretch of the river close to the bench.
READ MORE: Seven key bombshells from Nicola Bulley's partner Paul Ansell as he speaks out on missing mum
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Mr Faulding raised concerns about Lancashire Police 'declaring early on' that they believed Nicola was in the river. He said: "I think the worst mistake the police have made was to declare early on that she’s in the river rather than saying 'let’s keep lines of enquiry open'.
"This is a lady who knew this area intimately, she was slim and fit, and if she had fallen she could have grabbed on to the bank".
He added: "I have this natural ability to find things. And if she was there, I would have found her."
Mr Faulding has worked on a number of high-profile cases, including that of MI6 officer Gareth Williams - who was found naked inside a padlocked bag in 2010. However, earlier this week, Lancashire Police Superintendent Sally Riley claimed that Mr Faulding wasn’t included on all the details of the investigation ‘any more than the members of the public’.
She said: "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."
On Friday, Nicola's heartbroken partner, Paul Ansell, has said he is '100 per cent' convinced Nicola is not in the river.
He told Dan Walker: "People don't just vanish into thin air. It's absolutely impossible. So something has happened. Whatever has happened, in my eyes, has to be somebody who knows the local area. You would only know that area, by local, it's a local area."
Paul explained that he and Nicola had been walking the path she disappeared from since they met 12 years ago. He continued: "You see the same faces every single day, and on the very odd occasion when you see somebody that you know, you don't know.
"They stand out like a sore thumb." He said: "The fact that nothing's been seen or heard, I just truly believe that it's something in the village."
But yesterday, Julie Mackay, a retired Detective Superintendent who previously solved a 32-year-old murder, said that she backs the police's working hypothesis. She said three factors influenced her conclusion, namely that no new information has given them a reason to think otherwise, that it is unlikely to be criminal based on the time she disappeared, and that winter conditions would make it harder to find her.
Ms Mackay said: "I still believe she's gone in that river - today when you look at the last two weeks and review it, nothing has changed." The former Det Supt said that even though Nicola hasn't been found near the potential entry point near the bench, it doesn't mean she's not there.
"It's not as unusual as you think. If she's then sadly gone over that Wyre it becomes tidal and then the possibility that she's gone out to sea is still quite possible. On the face of it, I still agree with the police."
Read more of today's top stories here
READ NEXT:
