Nicola Bulley's partner speaks out on online 'monster' family endured during search for missing mum
27 September 2024, 09:08 | Updated: 27 September 2024, 10:50
The partner of Nicola Bulley has said the online obsession with his former partner who disappeared last year became a "monster".
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The mum-of-two vanished in January 2023 while walking her dog in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire, shortly after dropping her daughters at school.
Her body was found in a river less than a month later. An inquest found the 45-year-old accidentally drowned.
In a new documentary on her disappearance, Paul Ansell said the family believed the first wave of interest in the case was a positive thing and hoped it would keep the pressure on Lancashire Police to keep searching for her.
However, his hopes changed following a wave of amateur social media "sleuths" posting misleading and far-fetched claims about her disappearance - with the family receiving toxic online abuse.
"I think anything like that is a double-edged sword," he adds. "That's the problem. You're poking a monster."
The hunt for Bulley was one of the most substantial missing person searches in England for years, involving underwater search teams, drones, mounted police, drones and a police helicopter.
The frenzy of speculation saw 6,500 international articles written about the hunt in the space of one day, and TikTok videos with the hashtag of her name had 270 million views.
Lancashire Police press office logged more than 500 media calls and 75,000 inbound social media comments on the case in about one month.
As the search continued, so-called "amateur detectives" began travelling to Lancashire to investigate for themselves.
As their fascination with the case exploded, police became more concerned they could interfere with the case.
Additionally, the amount of online hate fired towards the family began to get worse.
Mr Ansell said he recieved messages from strangers saying things like "We know what you did" and "You can't hide Paul" and "You b******".
"If you reply to that, they'll just screenshot your reply and that'll end up on social media.
"You are literally silenced."
The documentary explores the turmoil the family went through as the search intensified - as well as the impact it had on the couple's young children.
"One morning, I got up," said Nicola’s mother Dorothy.
"The youngest one, she says: 'Cold, isn't it, Nanny?'
She said: 'I hope mummy’s not cold and hungry'."
"The nights were the hardest,” Paul said about the search. ”In the morning the hope would be strong. It used to go dark at like 4pm.
"It used to get to about 3pm and then I’d start panicking that I knew it would start going dark in an hour. So we had an hour to find her."
And then obviously I’d have the girls. The first they’d do when they came out of school was run over and say ‘have we found mummy?"
Caller condemns police for releasing Nicola Bulley's health details
A review into Lancashire Police also found that disclosure of personal information about Ms Bulley's health struggles was "avoidable and unnecessary".
The family said in the documentary they were not happy about her struggles being revealed to the public, with Paul saying Nicola would have been “mortified”
The force came under fire for how it made public details of her medical situation available amid the social media frenzy.
Shelagh Fogarty's monologue on Nicola Bulley
However, later a review found that in policing terms the missing persons investigation was well handled, but that the force had lost control of the public narrative at an early stage.
Senior officers were accused of "insufficient focus" and errors of judgment, with the report questioning the culture of the force.
In the documentary, the police added they were "inundated with false information, accusations and rumours" relating to the case and accused people on TikTok of "playing private detectives" in the area.
The Search For Nicola Bulley airs October 3 on BBC One and iPlayer.
