THE detective blasted for releasing private details about Nicola Bulley’s heavy drinking has blamed conspiracy theories centred on the mum’s bereaved partner for her decision.
In a BBC documentary Detective Superintendent Rebecca Smith claims the 45-year-old mortgage advisor’s partner Paul Ansell was “key to a lot of people’s theories and we had to negate that.”
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DS Smith was the officer in charge of the missing person’s case when Nicola disappeared in January 2023 after going for a walk along the River Wyre near her home in Inskip, Lancashire.
The program reveals the huge tensions between the police and Nicola’s family prior to the discovery of her dead body in the water three weeks after the mum-of-two’s phone was found on a bench next to the river.
Politicians, including the then prime minister Rishi Sunak, questioned Lancashire Police’s decision to tell the public that Nicola was suffering from “vulnerabilities” including drinking too much alcohol while dealing with the perimenopause.
Paul, who had been with Nicola for eleven years and had two young daughters with her, tells how the police put out the statement while they were looking over it to make amendments.
He blasts the cops, saying: “We were in the living room, still working on it and before we knew it they had released it.
“Nikki would be mortified about what has happened and how it came about.”
He added: “There was an awful lot of conflict with the police.”
An inquest in June 2023 found that Nicola had accidentally drowned and that no foul play was involved.
Despite that, internet sleuths continue to speculate about what happened to the mum, who was the focus of news headlines across the globe.
Paul tells of the cruel depths some trolls sunk to in a bid to gain more followers online.
The grieving partner recounts how one blogger even videoed him and his two daughters as he dropped them off at school.
He also received direct messages saying “you bastard”, “you can’t hide” and “we know what you did”.
Nikki would be mortified about what has happened and how it came about
Paul Ansell
One social media ghoul went as far as recording Nicola’s body as it was removed from the river.
Others went into the gardens of homes near the river with spades to search for “clues.”
The situation got so bad that the police issued dispersal orders and arrested the most persistent offenders.
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The Mystery
The BBC documentary titled the Search for Nicola Bulley, which airs on Thursday, delves into the mass hysteria around the case.
Nearly a quarter of a million people go missing every year in Britain, but the disappearance of the mum on January 27 2023 quickly grabbed the public’s attention.
What was mysterious about the case was that her phone was on the bench and the family dog Willow was close by.
People couldn’t understand how a mother, who’d come back from the school run and had just been on an online work call, could simply “vanish.”
It was something that perplexed Paul as well.
In his first interview since Nicola’s body was found, he says: “I was convinced someone had taken her”.
Nicola’s dad Ernest and mum Dorothy also thought she had not fallen into the river.
But the police felt that was the most likely conclusion.
James Pinder, search advisor to Lancashire police, comments “in my mind she was in the water” and Smith agrees “it was my belief that she had unfortunately fallen into the river”.
Officers came to that conclusion because there was CCTV footage covering three out of four potential exits from the spot where Nicola was last seen alive.
Those recordings suggested she hadn’t left the scene.
But there was one route out that someone could have carried a kidnapped Nicola through.
Nicola’s mum Dorothy says: “She did walk that walk a lot, you don’t know who was watching her”.
Early on in the investigation Paul turned off his social media so that he could focus on the search and looking after his daughters.
But his friends kept him informed about what was being written online.
Police pressure
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Paul was happy that the media were keeping the story alive because it kept the “pressure” on the police to keep searching for Nicola.
He comments: “I didn’t want to get bogged down on whatever platforms I was on, so I came off it.
“But a lot of friends were on it and a lot of the time we were like ‘we agree with you, what the heck has happened?’“
Paul’s decision to call in independent river search specialist Peter Faulding increased tensions with Lancashire police.
He reveals: “At that point there was an awful lot of conflict with the police. I always expected Nikki to come walking through the door”.
After a three day search found no body, Faulding declared that Nicola was not in the Wyre.
That supported Paul’s belief that someone else could be involved.
Unfortunately for him, many trolls were speculating that Paul could have killed his partner.
One turned up at the car park at my children’s school, videoing me taking the kids to school
Paul Ansell
He says: “Some of the absolutely bats*** crazy things that were being said, conspiracies about me having an affair with one of Nikki’s friends and then that it wasn’t Nikki who left my house that morning.
“You release something to squash something and then it spirals into something else.”
Nicola’s parents say that there was no way Paul could have hurt their daughter.
Ernest says: “They loved each other, they were always together.”
Paul thinks that while media interest in the case was helpful, it had a painful downside.
He says: “It’s a double-edged sword – you are poking a monster.”
Paul recalls: “Week three we saw a lot of escalation on social media. One turned up at the car park at my children’s school, videoing me taking the kids to school and I thought you’ve got to be kidding me.”
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Vulnerabilities
With more and more theories about Nicola being kidnapped and held captive, the police decided to reveal that she had been suffering from “mental health issues”.
That could turn the story back to the idea that Nicola was in the river – hinting at suicide.
But Paul insists that in the days running up to her disappearance, Nicola had stopped drinking and was taking drugs to help counter the worst effects of the perimenopause.
In the press conference the police said that Nicola was treated as a high level missing person right from the start because she had “specific vulnerabilities.”
That phrase just led to more social media speculation and so Lancashire Police clarified that the vulnerabilities were drink and perimenopause related.
Paul didn’t agree with the statement that was put out and commentators accused the police of “victim blaming” Nicola.
Now, it seems that DS Smith says Paul was the reason for the force putting out the statement.
She says: “We had to put some information out in a correct and accurate format.”
In the end, it was the spotlight on the case that did help find Nicola.
A spiritualist called Jason Rothwell went searching for her in the river Wyre after hearing about the story.
He spotted the body in the reed bed and informed the police.
Jason claims that he learned of the spot by speaking to Nicola’s spirit.
He says: “When I first communicated with her what stood out was she said ‘find me where you find your dog.’
“My dog Hudson had died a few weeks earlier and so I googled Hudson and we found there was a place called Hudson Fishery just along that piece of the water.
“This object came floating in the water.”
It was the news that Nicola’s family had dreaded.
Paul says: “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, disbelief.”
The distraught father then had to break the news to Nicola’s children that their mum was dead.
Ernest says: “I will never forget the cries”.
But 18 months on from the tragic accident, which the coroner ruled was not the result of suicide, Paul is able to think about the good times he had with Nicola.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
He concludes: “I feel very blessed that we found each other. Nikki being found in the water was horrific but it ends the hell of not knowing.”
The Search for Nicola Bulley is BBC One on October 3 at 9pm.
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Nicola Bulley timeline
HOW the search for Nicola Bulley unfolded
January 27 2023
8.26am – Nicola leaves home and drops her children off at school tens minutes later
8.43am – She goes for a walk along the River Wyre with the family dog Willow
9.01am – Nicola logs into a work Teams call
9.10am – Someone who knew Nicola sees her on the upper field near the towpath.
9.30am – The Teams call ends with Nicola still logged on.
9.33am – Willow and Nicola’s mobile phone are found on the bench by the river.
10:50am – Paul is told that she has gone missing.
January 28 – The police employ drones, dogs, helicopters and an underwater search team to try to locate the missing mum.
January 29 – Around one hundred locals volunteer to join the search.
January 30 – Superintendent Sally Riley says the police are not treating Nicola’s disappearance as suspicious.
February 2 – Supt Riley says the most likely scenario is that Nicola fell into the river.
February 4 – Nicola’s sister Louise Cunningham says there is ‘no evidence whatsoever’ that her sibling had gone into the water.
February 5 – A three day search of the river by Specialist Group International SGI’s Peter Faulding begins.
February 10 – The police urge trolls not to speculate about Nicola’s whereabouts.
February 15 – Following pressure on Lancashire’s force, the police reveal that they had classed Nicola a ‘high-risk’ missing person due to her ‘vulnerabilities’ with alcohol and the perimenopause.
February 16 – The then Home Secretary Suella Braverman questions the police force’s decision to release private information about Nicola.
February 19 – A body is found in the river one mile from where Nicola went missing.
February 20 – Lancashire Police confirms the body recovered from the river is Nicola.
June 26 – Following a two-day inquest in Preston, senior coroner Dr James Adeley rules Nicola’s death was a tragic accident. He rules out natural causes and suicide.
