The disclosure of private information about Nicola Bulley is “shocking”, according to Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt. Her comments came after reports that heartless trolls hacked into social media accounts belonging to the missing mum's partner Paul Ansell.
Hacker's gained access to the engineer's Pinterest account and posted sexually explicit photographs of women, the Mirror reports. Several images appeared on Saturday including topless models in lingerie and pictures of an actress in a bikini.
Lancashire Police was alerted to the posts by the Sunday Express and launched an investigation, confirming his account had been hacked. A spokesperson for the force said: “Paul Ansell’s Pinterest account has been accessed by a third party and is being closed down. We are investigating the matter.”
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Meanwhile, Ms Mordaunt told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman were "right to raise concerns" about the force's handling of private information in the investigation.
Lancashire Police came under fire for releasing details of Nicola’s struggles with alcohol and peri-menopause symptoms to the public. Information Commissioner John Edwards has said he will be asking the force about its decision to make the information public.
Ms Mordaunt said: “I mean, the first thing I felt was for her family. I mean, it’s bad enough having had your loved one go missing, but to have had all the additional drama that’s accompanied this very tragic case is horrific.
“And I think it it really does grate with a lot of women and we have to put up with all kinds of sexist behaviour in all kinds of settings. And I think to have it play out in this kind of environment is why people are so upset.”
Asked whether police displayed sexism in their dealing with the case, Ms Mordaunt said: “I think that they clearly were motivated to try and explain why this case is a complex one. But I think there are serious questions to be asked about why they wanted to reveal particular information.”
In a press conference on Wednesday, Lancashire Police revealed that Nicola was classed as a “high-risk” missing person immediately after her partner reported her disappearance “based on a number of specific vulnerabilities”. They later added in a statement that she had been struggling with alcohol issues and the menopause, and had stopped taking HRT medication.
According to the Sunday Times, Lancashire Police has now drafted in a behavioural profiling expert and a forensic clinical psychologist to help in the search, and has made contact with a dog behavioural specialist to collect any information from the missing mum's springer spaniel.
The force has previously said its main working hypothesis is that Nicola fell into the River Wyre in a “10-minute window” on the day she disappeared. She was last seen at 9.10am taking her usual route with Willow, alongside the river, having earlier dropped off her two daughters at school.
Her phone, still connected to a work call for her job as a mortgage adviser, was found just over 20 minutes later on a bench overlooking the riverbank, with her dog running loose. The search for her has since been extended to the sea, but she has not been found.
Her partner Paul spoke to Channel 5 for a documentary about her disappearance in which he was asked how he felt about the high level of interest in the case and the accusations levelled against him from trolls.
He said “it would be upsetting” but only “if I let myself read it all," adding: “I have seen some stuff. Most people have been amazing. You’re always going to get that two per cent of people that for whatever reason say and do not very nice things."
A former prosecutor warned this week that the ongoing speculation surrounding Nicola's disappearance "could ultimately impact on justice" if a trial were to take place. The investigation has received considerable attention from the public with some vigilante groups even heading to the village to try and join in the search.
Solicitor Nazir Afzal said any potential jury could struggle to consider the case from an impartial standpoint. He told The Independent: "Armchair sleuths raise expectations that can’t be managed and ultimately impact on justice. For example, prospective jury members expect that certain evidence should be available because of what they’ve read or seen, and if it’s not then they ask why."
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