Our police chief needs to address Nicola concerns
FOR weeks now, the search for missing Lancashire woman Nicola Bulley has dominated the headlines. Tragically, and as police said all along, Nicola was found in the River Wyre.
For Lancashire Police, it has been a torrid few weeks, with seemingly anyone with access to a Twitter account an expert on river searches for missing people.
At a time when police resources are already stretched thin, it is bordering on the revolting that officers had to spend time in St Michaels-on-Wyre enforcing a dispersal zone to stop people turning up to watch what was happening, and worse.
But it’s one statement from Lancashire Police which continues to trouble a lot of people, right across the county, and beyond.
Last week, it disclosed that the mother-of-two had suffered ‘significant issues with alcohol’ in the past brought on by ‘ongoing struggles with the menopause.’
It is a statement which shocked and bewildered many people. The purpose of releasing such a statement remains unclear - it’s highly personal information which, frankly, it seems impossible to find a reason for telling the wider world about.
It has also brought a rebuke from the home secretary, who is asking for an explanation.
Other police experts, including a former victims commisoner for England and Wales, said if the public needed to know about it to aid the search, it should have been revealed at the start.
Dame Vera Baird also argued that such a statement would be less likely to be made if it involved a man.
At this point, it runs the risk of becoming a wider issue of trust for everyone in Lancashire.
This is not to criticise the police officers we rely on day in, day out when something goes wrong or we need help.
We need to know we can trust the police with our most private, sensitive information and that it will only be used, or shared, only when necessary and done so sensitively.
To that end, this puts the matter firmly on the desk of Andrew
Snowden, the Rossendale-based police and crime commissioner for Lancashire.
The PCC role, elected by the public, is not there to tell the police how to do their job and certainly is not there to get involved in active investigations.
But, according to Mr Snowden’s website, his role is to ‘act as your voice in policing within
Lancashire.’
He is there, he says, to hold the chief constable to account for the delivery of the force.
He also talks about setting the ‘strategic direction for the police.’
That has to mean making sure that Lancashire Police is a force people, often at the lowest, or most stressful, moments of their lives, can trust.
Mr Snowden took criticism at the weekend for posting pictures of his dinner and choice of wine, while not really mentioning the Nicola Bulley search over the past few weeks.
It seems reasonable that officers are left to do their job, rather than having a commentary from their elected official, during an investigation.
But it is absolutely essential Mr Snowden demonstrates the value of the Police and Crime Commissioners office - which in total costs hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to operate - in making sure that legitimate concerns about the sharing of deeply personal information in a high-profile case are fully addressed.