{"id":12558,"date":"2024-09-27T00:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-09-27T00:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/nicola-bulley-online-obsession-became-monster-family-says\/"},"modified":"2024-09-27T00:00:36","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T00:00:36","slug":"nicola-bulley-online-obsession-became-monster-family-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/nicola-bulley-online-obsession-became-monster-family-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicola Bulley online obsession became ‘monster’, family says"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The search for Nicola Bulley: ‘Have we found Mummy?’<\/figcaption><\/p>\n
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Nicola Bulley\u2019s partner has described the social media focus and online obsession with her disappearance “as a monster” that got out of control.<\/p>\n

Speaking publicly for the first time since Nicola\u2019s body was found, Paul Ansell tells the BBC the family felt the initial wave of interest in the case was a positive thing.<\/p>\n

They hoped it would keep the pressure on Lancashire Police to keep searching for her, he says. But that was quickly overtaken by a wave of amateur social media sleuths, posting hurtful and wildly misleading claims about the case – with the family receiving online hate.<\/p>\n

“I think anything like that is a double-edged sword,” he adds. “That’s the problem. You’re poking a monster.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Lancashire mother-of-two disappeared on 27 January 2023 while walking her dog in St Michael’s on Wyre, shortly after dropping her daughters off at school.<\/p>\n

Her body was found in a river on 19 February and an inquest in June last year found she had died due to accidental drowning.<\/p>\n

A documentary, called the Search For Nicola Bulley<\/a>, explores the media coverage and the impact of amateur internet sleuths conducting their own investigations, as well as hearing from Lancashire Police and Nicola\u2019s family.<\/p>\n

The Friday morning of her disappearance was “normal”, Paul tells the documentary.<\/p>\n

He says Nicola left at about 08:30am to take their two children to school with the family\u2019s dog, Willow.<\/p>\n

When she didn\u2019t return at the usual time, Paul says he wasn’t overly worried. But at about 10:30am the children\u2019s school rang to say somebody had found their dog and Nicola\u2019s phone by a bench.<\/p>\n

“I mean, that’s not a normal phone call to get,” he tells the documentary. “She would never have left Willow.”<\/p>\n

He says he knew “something isn’t right here” and recalls feeling like he was having a panic attack.<\/p>\n

“It’s where you feel like your legs have gone. In a situation like that, your mind is going absolutely crazy. And so I rang the police as I was driving.”<\/p>\n

“That Friday, I was just sat at my desk, and I got a phone call from Paul,” Louise Cunningham, Nicola\u2019s sister tells the documentary. “And he was panicky and frantic, and he was like, ‘something’s happened, something strange has happened’.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Listen: Nicola Bulley’s partner made the 999 call after she failed to come home<\/figcaption><\/p>\n
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The documentary hears the turmoil the family went through as the search for Nicola intensified – and the impact it had on Nicola and Paul\u2019s young children.<\/p>\n

“One morning, I got up,” Nicola\u2019s mother, Dorothy, tells the programme. “The youngest one, she says: ‘Cold, isn’t it, Nanny?’ She said: ‘I hope mummy\u2019s not cold and hungry’.”<\/p>\n

“The nights were the hardest,\u201d Paul remembers of the search. \u201dIn the morning the hope would be strong. It used to go dark at like 4pm.<\/p>\n

“It used to get to about 3pm and then I\u2019d start panicking that I knew it would start going dark in an hour. So we had an hour to find her.<\/p>\n

“And then obviously I\u2019d have the girls. The first they\u2019d do when they came out of school was run over and say \u2018have we found mummy?”<\/p>\n

As the search for Nicola continued, so-called ‘amateur detectives’ began travelling to Lancashire to see what they could find.<\/p>\n

As their fascination with the case spiralled, police became increasingly concerned they might interfere with the investigation.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the amount of online hate focussed on the family began to get worse.<\/p>\n

“I was getting direct messages from people that I’ve never met – they don’t know me, they don’t know us, they don’t know Nicky,” Paul says now.<\/p>\n

He was told “you can’t hide” and “we know what you did”. Unable to reply, he says he felt “silenced”.<\/p>\n

“On top of the trauma of the nightmare that we’re in, to then think that all these horrendous things are being said about me towards Nicky – everyone has a limit.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nicola’s parents Dorothy and Ernest <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Days before she was found, Lancashire Police told the public Nicola had “significant issues” with alcohol brought on by her ongoing struggles with the menopause.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s not uncommon to go through it young,” Louise tells the documentary. “But Nicky had it tough. And then, I guess, over about a three-week period in total, she just wasn’t functioning like normal Nicky.”<\/p>\n

Paul describes how Nicola developed trouble sleeping. “The lack of sleep, irritability, brain fog – she’d be awake for hours in the night, hot sweats every single day. Everything was becoming difficult.”<\/p>\n

The family says Nicola stopped taking her HRT over that period and began having a drink to deal with it.<\/p>\n

“It was literally normal, weird blip. That’s the most honest answer I can give you,” Louise says.<\/p>\n

Police officers investigating Nicola\u2019s disappearance felt they had to release personal information about her struggle with the menopause and drinking.<\/p>\n

“Because of the commentary that was coming up on social media, Paul was just key to a lot of people’s theories, and we had to negate that,” says Det Supt Rebecca Smith, who played a key role in the investigation.<\/p>\n

The family were not happy about Nicola\u2019s alcohol and menopause struggles being revealed to the public, with Paul saying Nicola would have been \u201cmortified\u201d about the information being shared.<\/p>\n

“Went mad again, didn’t it, in the media,” recalls Louise. Nicola\u2019s family criticised parts of the press for what they described as “absolutely appalling” conduct.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The family\u2019s worst fears came true on 19 February, three weeks after Nicola\u2019s disappearance, when police were called to reports of a body in the River Wyre.<\/p>\n

Visibly upset, Det Supt Smith tells the documentary about the moment Nicola was found and describes sitting in a police tent with her body “for quite a long time until she was taken to hospital.”<\/p>\n

Reliving the moment the family was informed about Nicola\u2019s body being found, Louise says: “I\u2019ll never forget dad coming into the kitchen. Just, like, completely breaking down and Paul being out in the garden. Just in a complete state.”<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ll never forget the cries,” says Nicola\u2019s dad Ernest, who describes hugging his son-in-law Paul as they tried to process the devastating news.<\/p>\n

Last year, a coroner recorded Ms Bulley’s death as accidental, saying she had fallen into the river and suffered “cold water shock”, and there was “no evidence” to suggest suicide.<\/p>\n

Police accused people on TikTok of “playing private detectives” in the area, and said they had been “inundated with false information, accusations and rumours” relating to the case.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t always have to be something sinister linked to something that happens,” Louise says.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes bad things just happen. I just wish it didn\u2019t happen to us. We’re just a normal family. We’ve had a really tough time.”<\/p>\n

Paul says he still sees Nicola in the faces of the couple\u2019s two daughters.<\/p>\n

“I see her in the girls every single day. I see all these little mannerisms in them and I\u2019m like ‘that was Mummy, you know?’ And that is worth everything, I think.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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