A ghoulish TikToker who filmed the moment Nicola Bulley's body was pulled from a river and posted it online said he had 'learned his lesson' following a furious backlash.
Curtis Arnold posted numerous videos on his 'Curtis Media' channels on TikTok, YouTube and Facebook during the three-week hunt for the missing mum-of-two. But footage he posted of officers using a body bag at the edge of the River Wyre after the 45-year-old was found evoked strong criticism.
Arnold, a barber from Kidderminster, later apologised to the family via his TikTok channel and admitted it 'perhaps was bad timing to put that video online'. He said subsequent media coverage had a 'devastating' impact on his life and claimed he had been assaulted and had his 'personal address posted all over Facebook', adding: "Safe to say I've learned my lesson."
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In his latest video, posted in the early hours of Monday morning, February 27, he addressed what he called a 'pretty damning' article in a national newspaper, Birmingham Live reports. He said the article said he'd 'lied to police and deceived his way through to film the video', adding: "That's not true.
"When I arrived at St Michael's that day, at about 11am, me and the mainstream media were talking and we could see the helicopter hovering, so we all headed over the field. They had to collect all their big camera stuff so I got there first.
"At that point, there was no police cordon on the river path, only on the road, so I ended up in the middle of the police activity and, as you can see in the video, a policeman comes over and I managed to get myself through. At that point, I had no idea what they were doing but I wanted to film it for my channel, obviously.
"I carried on walking down that road, found nothing, so presumed they were doing something in the river. Went back, again, lied my way through to get the police to err, to get back to the other side, and at that point I noticed they were actually going over the bank and presumably into the river.
"However at that point, I still did not believe it was Nicola. We presumed some evidence had been found, maybe car keys, an item of clothing. Never in a million years did I think it would be a body.
"So then about half-an-hour later, I managed to get to the other side of the river, I zoomed in four times and as you can see, it's quite far away. The police could clearly see me filming, so there's no way it was covertly filmed."
He claimed another news crew was also filming from another angle, adding they were closer and had also put that footage online. "In hindsight, perhaps it was a little bit sensitive, perhaps it was bad timing to put that video online as an individual journalist for YouTube, rather than mainstream media", he said.
"Perhaps mainstream media can get away with that. I just presumed, they'd taken the video and the viewers on YouTube would want to see what's happening and perhaps I didn't take into account the family at that time, I admit that.
"That's why I've taken it off TikTok, I've taken it off Facebook and today, I've made a donation to the family - five times the amount that that particular video has made me. I won't give figures away but I've made an anonymous donation to Paul [Ansell]."
Arnold said the coverage had a 'devastating' impact on his life. He claimed he has been assaulted, had his workplace and car damaged, adding: "I've had people come to the house, I've had my personal address posted all over Facebook and shared. I'm not trying to play the victim here, I'm just stating that article has caused that.
"Safe to say I've learned my lesson maybe perhaps on a video like that but at the same time there are lot of people saying the video is helpful to highlight the police not really doing what they should be doing, that's fine. I'm not willing to go through this again for a video, so I won't be doing a video of that again and we hope nothing tragically happens like that again anyway."
Concluding the video, he addressed Nicola's partner directly: "Paul Ansell, if you're watching this, I hope it hasn't offended you too much and I wish you well with moving forward."
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