Online obsession with Nicola Bulley became a 'monster', family tells BBC

Nicola Bulley’s partner has described the social media fixation and online obsession with her disappearance as a "monster" that got out of control.

Speaking publicly for the first time since Nicola’s body was found, Paul Ansell tells the BBC the family felt the initial wave of interest in the case was a positive thing.

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.

"I think anything like that is a double-edged sword," he adds. "That's the problem. You're poking a monster."

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.

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.

A documentary, called the Search For Nicola Bulley, explores the media coverage and the impact of amateur internet sleuths conducting their own investigations, as well as hearing from Lancashire Police and Nicola’s family.

Panicky and frantic

The Friday morning of her disappearance was "normal", Paul tells the documentary.

He says Nicola left at about 08:30 to take their two children to school with the family’s dog, Willow.

When she didn’t return at the usual time, Paul says he wasn't overly worried. But at about 10:30 the children’s school rang to say somebody had found their dog and Nicola’s phone by a bench.

"I mean, that's not a normal phone call to get," he tells the documentary. "She would never have left Willow."

He says he immediately knew "something isn't right here" and recalls feeling like he was having a panic attack.

"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."

"That Friday, I was just sat at my desk, and I got a phone call from Paul," Louise Cunningham, Nicola’s sister tells the documentary. "And he was panicky and frantic, and he was like, 'something's happened, something strange has happened'."

The documentary hears the turmoil the family went through as the search for Nicola intensified - as well as the impact it had on Nicola and Paul’s young children.

"The nights were the hardest,” Paul remembers of 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?"

"One morning, I got up," Nicola’s mother, Dorothy, tells the programme. "The youngest one, she says: 'Cold, isn't it, Nanny?' She said: 'I hope mummy’s not cold and hungry'."

As the search for Nicola continued, so-called "amateur detectives" began travelling to Lancashire to see what they could find.

As their fascination with the case spiralled, police became increasingly concerned they might interfere with the investigation.

And the amount of online hate focused on the family began to get worse.

"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 Nikki," Paul says.

He was told "you can't hide" and "we know what you did". Unable to reply, he says he felt "silenced".

"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 Nikki - everyone has a limit."

Nicola's parents Dorothy and Ernest

At a news conference 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.

"It’s not uncommon to go through it young," Louise tells the documentary. "But Nikki had it tough. And then, I guess, over about a three-week period in total, she just wasn't functioning like normal Nikki."

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."

The family says Nicola stopped taking her hormone replacement therapy over that period and began drinking to deal with it.

"It was literally [a] normal, weird blip. That's the most honest answer I can give you," Louise says.

Police officers investigating Nicola’s disappearance say they felt they had to release personal information about her struggle with the menopause and drinking.

"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.

The family were not happy about Nicola’s alcohol and menopause struggles being revealed to the public, with Paul saying Nicola would have been “mortified” about the information being shared.

"Went mad again, didn't it, in the media," recalls Louise. Nicola’s family criticised parts of the press for what they described as "absolutely appalling" conduct.

The family’s worst fears came true on 19 February, three weeks after Nicola’s disappearance, when police were called to reports of a body in the River Wyre.

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."

Reliving the moment the family was informed about Nicola’s body being found, Louise says: "I’ll never forget dad coming into the kitchen. Just, like, completely breaking down and Paul being out in the garden. Just in a complete state."

"I’ll never forget the cries," says Nicola’s dad Ernest, who describes hugging his son-in-law Paul as they tried to process the devastating news.

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.

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.

"It doesn't always have to be something sinister linked to something that happens," Louise says.

"Sometimes bad things just happen. I just wish it didn’t happen to us. We're just a normal family. We've had a really tough time."

Paul says he still sees Nicola in the faces of the couple’s two daughters.

"I see her in the girls every single day. I see all these little mannerisms in them and I’m like 'that was Mummy, you know?' And that is worth everything, I think."

• The Search for Nicola Bulley will be broadcast on BBC One on 3 October at 21:00 BST and on BBC iPlayer