Nicola Bulley: a fraught investigation
“By their very nature, missing person inquiries can be fraught,” said Fiona Hamilton in The Times. Detectives must untangle complicated lives, and deal with distressed families. Such cases are difficult “even when police operate under the radar”, and they’re much harder when the inquiry takes place in the full glare of the media. But even by these standards, the case of Nicola Bulley was an upsetting and disturbing one. The disappearance of the mother of two unleashed a storm of “ghoulish” public interest, and led to some highly questionable decisions by Lancashire Police.
On Sunday, she was found dead in the reeds by the River Wyre in Lancashire, less than a mile from where she was last seen.
The police had quickly concluded that there was no evidence of third-party involvement, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian – correctly, it would seem. But when their search of the river led nowhere, a “riot of speculation” developed online, as “armchair detectives and keyboard warriors piled in with conspiracies, speculation and fantasy”. One YouTuber, Dan Duffy, joined the search purely to post a video of himself doing so. Amateur true-crime sleuths were filmed digging up woodland. Dispersal notices had to be issued to stop people trespassing in local gardens. Terrible accusations were levelled at Bulley’s desperate partner Paul Ansell; his Pinterest account was hacked and filled with explicit pictures. In the midst of this chaos, the Lancashire constabulary tried to “retake control of the narrative” by holding a press conference and debunking various bogus theories. Detective Superintendent Becky Smith, the senior investigating officer, also saw fit to reveal that Bulley had “significant issues with alcohol” brought on by her “struggles with the menopause”. It was intended to quell speculation, but it did the opposite. It was also an entirely inappropriate invasion of Bulley’s privacy.
This decision drew expressions of concern from both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, said The Observer. At a time when women’s trust in the police is “justifiably low”, it seemed like yet more evidence of institutional misogyny. In truth, it’s more a sign of a breakdown of relations between the police and the media, said John Sturgis in The Spectator. After the Leveson Inquiry, police were ordered to drop all unauthorised contact with journalists. Before that, such contacts had been arguably too cosy. But at least they allowed cooperation, and gave police a degree of control over the story. There will always be lurid theories out there. A decent working relationship between police and journalists helps to fight misinformation.