One of the country's former top police chiefs has described criticism of the police searching for missing mum Nicoila Bulley as "not helpful". Sir Peter Fahy, former chief at Greater Manchester Police, said there was "a feeling that the way Lancashire Police has been focused on has got to the stage of being unfair".
Nicola, 45, disappeared while on a dog walk in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire, on January 27. The investigation has been criticised after, during a press briefing led by senior investigating officer Rebecca Smith, it was revealed Nicola had "vulnerabilities".
Later that day, the constabulary released a statement outlining that Nicola had "significant" issues with alcohol brought on by struggles with menopause. Reportedly due to these issues, on January 10 officers had been called to her address in Inskip over concerns for her welfare.
This step was soon condemned and the force referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in relation to its contact with the family prior to the disappearance.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4 Today, Sir Peter described investigators as "very diligent". On the criticism Lancashire Police have received over revealing Nicola's personal struggles, he said that in investigations, there can be information released that "gets to the stage where it's not in the public interest".
"Part of the difficulty for Lancashire Police is this is just one of the cases where we just do not know what's happened," he added.
Sir Peter was also concerned about comments by some journalists about the appearance of Det Supt Smith following the police press conference on Wednesday, saying it had "created huge anger, particularly among senior police officers, and a number of female chief constables came out yesterday absolutely to condemn that and say how unfair it was - so this is just not helpful".
On the ongoing investigation, Sir Peter added: "It's disappointing that certain politicians have not perhaps tried to give this a more balanced view and say, yes there is a particular issue about providing personal information and that often happens in major investigations."
"They have closed off a lot of possibilities through their work on mobile phone and the CCTV. A measure of whether a missing person's investigation has been carried out professionally is not really whether that person has been found because tragically there are many, many cases where the person is not located."
