The disappearance of Nicola Bulley may be due to 'third party' involvement, claims an expert. Diving expert, Peter Faulding, shared his fears for the missing mother as he searched the river's "hot zone".
The 45-year-old disappeared on a dog walk in Lancashire last month and is yet to be found. Police have turned to Mr Faulding's dive squad, Specialist Group International, for help as the search for missing Nicola enters its 12th day.
The Mirror reports that the company is using sonar technology in the River Wyre in Lancashire to help locate the missing mum. Mr Faulding says he has spoken to Nicola's partner, Paul Ansell, since being drafted in by Lancashire Police.
The businessman says the father was "distraught". During a phone chat last night, Mr Faulding said he asked Paul if Nicola "had any stalkers or enemies or anything like that but he's completely baffled as well".
The expert said he feels like he is searching for an "invisible person" since he was drafted in by police yesterday. He told Good Morning Britain: "I personally think if I rule this stretch of river out today where we're working I don't think she's here, I think there's probably a third party involved."
Mr Faulding told the Mirror this morning his team are focusing on what he considers the "hot zone" in and around where she disappeared. He said they started yesterday at the weir around 200 metres away and continued for around three miles to rule that section out.
Mr Faulding said: "We’ll continue, we are going to do a really careful survey in the hot zone, where Nicola went missing originally. Where we were searching yesterday wasn’t what I called the hot zone.
"This is the hot zone, where we are searching today. If she’s here I’m confident we’ll find her in this section of the river.
"If she’s here. If I don’t get any targets today then she’s not in this part of the river.
"She’s not here. I don’t think she’s drifted far, that’s my personal opinion.
"The tide would have pushed her in."
But Mr Faulding, who has worked on a number of high-profile missing persons and “no body” murder investigations, has been left baffled by the lack of clues in the search. However he is "holding out hope" that she is alive and safe somewhere.
Mr Faulding added: "I'm baffled and we're all baffled by this case because the police divers searched this area in front of the bench the same day she went missing. I would expect a body to be at the bottom of the river.
"In my experience, it would literally be in the river in front of the bench - that's where you would normally find it. It's mad and it's just very odd if I'm honest.
"But I think we need to hold out hope that she's alive somewhere as she's just disappeared off the face of the earth. We just don't know, we're looking for an invisible person at the moment and we've got no idea.
"I think we need to do what we can, the police are doing a great job and we're all doing a hard job."
The diving expert also said that the only clues the police have about the case are her mobile phone and her dog Willow's harness, which were found minutes after she was last seen.
Mr Faulding said: "The only clue the police have got is just the mobile phone and the dog harness. That's it - there's nothing.
"I've worked on hundreds of cases and I've never seen anything like this as we would have expected to have found her by now."
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