An "abandoned" house has been searched as part of the investigation into finding missing Nicola Bulley.
The 45-year-old mum disappeared while on a dog walk on Friday, January 27, morning and a large scale police search launched. It has since been confirmed that her mobile phone was found on a bench along a river path, which was still logged into a work conference call.
Detectives have also revealed today they have tracked down a potential key witness. Now it's understood rescuers directed some of their efforts to an "abandoned house" right opposite the bench where her phone was found on the other side of the river.
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It is reported Nicola had dropped her two young children off at St Michael's-on-Wyre Church of England Primary School, and leaving her car parked nearby, went on the walk with spaniel Willow - something she is said to do regularly.
Kev Camplin, of Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue, led a team of 25 trained volunteers on the day Nicola - known as Nikki - went missing. He said they scoured a long stretch of the river, including wooded areas, water margins and the grounds of a large unoccupied country house.
Speaking to the Mirror, he said: "The abandoned house is right opposite the bench on the other side of the river, over a 10ft garden wall. It’s quite posh. We didn’t go into the house, as a volunteer search and rescue team we don’t actually go into buildings.
"We might go into a barn or something. We leave that to the police. While the team was searching the grounds, the owner was there for some reason, and we asked him to go in and he had a quick look around and she wasn’t there."
Kev said the team was contacted at around midday on Friday and he was at the search site within an hour, before they left at about 8pm. He added: "We probably searched a mile north upstream and then we probably searched probably three miles downstream. We covered quite a bit."
Nicola lives in Inskip, about three miles from where she went walking. Kev said: "So it’s not an unknown area for her, and it is a popular area for walkers and dog walkers alike. It’s actually quite a beautiful spot. Leaving the phone on the bench and then disappearing it is quite odd. We don’t normally get that.
"Sometimes we go to a search, classed as lowland search. You do get a car… where somebody has left their car. That’s the initial planning point.
"But her car was at the school and her phone was the initial planning point. Later we find out she was on a team's work call. We didn’t know that on Friday. I knew the phone was there, but not on a work call."
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