A FORENSIC search expert who said Nicola Bulley was not in the River Wyre has re-stated his belief that she did not drown at the location where her phone was found.
Peter Faulding, chief executive of Specialist Group International (SGI), was commenting on the discovery yesterday of a body in the river about a mile from where she was last seen.
Mr Faulding, who was called in by the family to search the river using sonar, said he still does not believe she drowned near the bench where her phone and dog’s harness were found.
He told GB News: “I would like to make it very clear that the police have searched that area with sonar and divers for the last three weeks. We spent four hours searching for Nicola on that strip of the river.
“I categorically confirm that Nicola was not on the river bed, we would have seen her body.
“If it was Nicola, and I hope it’s not or whoever it is, the body was found in the reeds not on the river bed and I was clear with the media that our sonar does not search in the reeds.
“They all know that and the police know that there was no sign of Nicola on the bottom.”
In a discussion with Isabel Webster and Eamonn Holmes during Breakfast on GB News, he said: “If Nicola had fallen in at the bench where the phone was found, she would have landed in two feet of water, she would not have drowned at that location.
“I don’t believe Nicola went in because the police divers searched that area thoroughly that afternoon and drowning victims go to the bottom, she could not have made it over the weir in a day.
“There’s no way and my whole team and other police police have looked at this. It baffled me and I am the one on here today defending my good work to try and help all the families that we do free of charge.
“I want to say again, the police have searched that area along the banks for three weeks thoroughly with divers, using side-scan sonar, and us – and you know there’s always a fall guy and it looks like it’s me, but I’m not accepting it.
“We’ve got the sonar imagery of the river bed…we did the best with our ability, but it was not our remit to search the reeds at all. That was the land search teams.”
He added: “My thoughts go out to the family. I’ve remained in close contact with the family.
“The trolls out there, we need to get a grip of these people. These are just the vile comments against the family, the police, myself – it’s no one’s fault.
“It’s a very hard job dealing with drownings and missing people. It’s not easy.
“We have to take our hats off to everyone who actually got involved with this search. And it’s the trolls who need to be exposed, I’m afraid.”
Asked if there were lessons to be learned, Mr Faulding said: “I think the comms was the lesson here…just detracting from everything.
“I think we need to learn but the police are under-resourced. There are hardly any police underwater search units in the UK now.
“We cover the whole of the south-east for all the police forces…there needs to be investment to get resources back in place to assist in these inquiries.
“If we didn’t cover the south-east nobody would and there’d be many people still lying in the river today.”
