‘Somebody in village knows what happened’
Missing Nicola’s partner tells of his fears ++ Now police will only say that she ‘may have’ gone in the water ++
THE partner of Nicola Bulley last night said he was ‘100 per cent convinced’ she didn’t fall in the river on her last walk.
Paul Ansell dismissed the police’s theory that the missing mother of two had drowned and said someone ‘in the village’ knew something.
In an emotional interview two weeks after his partner vanished while walking her dog, Mr Ansell, 44, vowed to ‘never give up’ on her and spoke of his family’s ‘unprecedented hell’. Ms Bulley, 45, vanished while walking their springer spaniel Willow along the River Wyre in Lancashire, just over half an hour after taking her children to school.
She was last seen by a fellow walker near the river at 9.10am on January 27.
In an extraordinary challenge to the police, who have said his partner of 12 years probably drowned, Mr Ansell said: ‘Something has happened – find out what it is. There has to be a way to find out what happened, there has to be. You cannot walk your dog down a river and just vanish into thin air.’
Dismissing Lancashire Police’s main theory that she fell into the river after her phone and dog were found nearby, Mr Ansell demanded a wider search.
In an interview with Channel 5, he said: ‘I’m 100 per cent convinced it’s not the river. My plea now, personally: I want every house, every garage, every outbuilding, the land, scrutinised. I want it all searched.’
After viewing for himself the shallow water and slow current of the River Wyre, Mr Ansell dismissed the police theory that his partner tumbled in and was swept away.
He said the river path, which Ms Bulley walked often, was ‘about as well known a walk to us as you could possibly do’, adding: ‘On the very odd occasion when you see somebody that you don’t know,
‘No clothing has been found’
they stand out like a sore thumb. So whatever has happened, in my eyes, has to be somebody who knows the local area. And the fact that nothing’s been seen or heard, I just truly believe that it’s something in the village.’
Mr Ansell’s theory is in direct contradiction to the stance of Lancashire Police, which says Ms Bulley most likely fell into the cold water while wearing two heavy coats and drowned. After searching the river, they have begun looking out to sea in Morecambe Bay.
Peter Faulding, an underwater search expert who helped police hunt for Ms Bulley, said he believed she might have been abducted.
In an interview with the Daily Mail today, he says police made a ‘mistake’ by declaring early on that the missing mother was in the river as it was ‘not drowning territory’.
The search this week moved out to sea but Mr Faulding said it was ‘near impossible’ that she was there because of a weir and shallow patches in the river.
Last week Superintendent Sally Riley said the force’s ‘main working hypothesis’ was Ms Bulley had fallen into the river and nobody else was involved. But yesterday police said only that they believed Ms Bulley ‘may have fallen into the river for some reason’ and stressed they were ‘continuing to investigate all possible leads’.
In other developments:
■ Police stepped up their searches of the Wyre estuary to include a bridge over the river around nine miles downstream from where they believe she fell in;
■ Close friends held a vigil in St Michael’s on Wyre with placards and posters in a plea for further witnesses to come forward;
■ A renewed appeal was made for CCTV footage from around where Ms Bulley vanished.
Mr Ansell – an engineer and parent to daughters aged nine and six with Ms Bulley – said he was feeling ‘anger, loads of frustration, confusion, disbelief, surrealism’.
He vowed he and their children would ‘not ever give up on her’. He told Channel 5’s Dan Walker in an ITN special, Vanished: Where is Nicola Bulley: ‘What we’re going through now is like unprecedented hell. But that hope and positivity in me is stronger than ever, and I’m never, ever going to let go.’
Mr Ansell said he and Ms Bulley have wanted to get married for years, although they delayed their plans when they had children and later because of the pandemic.
He described his ‘fun, loving’ partner as ‘the most loyal friend that you could ever have’.
He added: ‘With Nikki, what you see is what you get. Nothing’s hidden. she is an exceptional mum and she absolutely adores our girls. She’s just a pillar of strength to our family, and without her the hole is bigger than you can possibly imagine.’
Mr Ansell said he accepted ‘the most obvious’ cause of her disappearance ‘has always been the river’ but the fact no clothing or belongings have been found in the water changed his view.
‘If it was the river, something would’ve shown up somewhere,’ he said. He revealed his struggle to break news of what happened to the children, saying: ‘The only thing that I can do is tell them that everybody is looking for mummy.
‘The best people like, in the world, are looking for mummy, just to give them that, you know, that level of hope that they can understand that everything that can be done to find mummy, is being done.
‘I have to categorically say I cannot fault the police in any of this, they have been incredible, and the relationship that we have working on this is still very, very strong.’
Mr Ansell’s comments came nearly a week after Ms Bulley’s younger sister, Louise Cunningham, insisted that there was ‘no evidence whatsoever that she had gone into the river’.
It is 13 miles from St Michael’s on Wyre to the mouth of the river
in Morecambe Bay. Yesterday the search focused on a section of the estuary around nine miles downstream, at Shard Bridge, close to Poulton-le-Fylde.
There was also a police presence including mounted officers at Knott End-on-Sea, at the end of the estuary, where police boats searched on Thursday.
Lancashire Police yesterday said they were renewing their appeal for any CCTV or dashcam footage showing the entrance to a footpath used by Ms Bulley to reach the river.
None has yet been provided to the 40 detectives working on the case despite an estimated 700 cars having travelled through the village on the morning she vanished.
The force is also trying to trace a ‘tatty red van’ seen by two witnesses parked a quarter of a mile from the area where Ms Bulley disappeared. In a statement police said: ‘Based on all the work we have done up to now our belief remains that Nicola may have fallen into the river for some reason. But we are continuing to investigate all possible leads.’
A spokesman added: ‘Unfortunately, we continue to see groundless and hurtful abuse of innocent people, including witnesses and local businesses.
‘We also continue to see a huge amount of commentary from so-called experts, illinformed speculation and conspiracy theories which is damaging to the investigation, the community of St Michael’s and, worst of all, to Nicola’s family. It must stop.’