Lancashire Police has been criticised for releasing personal details about Nicola Bulley’s health struggles, with a report describing the decision as “avoidable and unnecessary”.
Senior officers have also come under fire for failing to brief accredited journalists properly during Ms Bulley’s disappearance earlier this year, leading to a vacuum of information and frenzied public speculation about her fate.
The 45-year-old mother of two vanished on Jan 27 while walking her dog next to the River Wyre in Lancashire.
Initial searches of the river failed to locate her and the mystery of her sudden unexplained disappearance led to fevered social media activity and hurtful conspiracy theories.
Lancashire Police’s decision to issue a statement revealing that Ms Bulley had “significant issues with alcohol” brought on by her ongoing struggles with the menopause, was criticised at the time by Rishi Sunak.
Now, an independent review of the police’s handling of the case has also described it as “avoidable and unnecessary” and has said the force should have worked more closely with the trusted mainstream media.
“Accredited” “Trusted Mainstream”
The work experience trustafarian from The Guardian gains more information access than I do?
Fuck off.
Nothing the police did or didn’t do made any difference to her fate. I can easily imagine the opposite scenario where the police didn’t issue any private info and that was deemed to have affected the search. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Sure, she was already dead, but I fail to see how making her medical history public knowledge would have helped in any way to find her.
“Missing: <name>, <age>, <height>, of <insert town here> last seen at <location> on <date> wearing <clothing>. Please contact <phone/email/website> with any information.” Anything else needed than that?
@BiW
It depends why she’s gone missing. If it’s the result of accident or third party intervention, sure that may find her. But if she’s holed up in accommodation under a false name quietly drinking herself to death it may not.
Of course that does beg the question, WTF’s it got to do with anyone else if that’s her choice? But we never actually own our own lives, do we?
So the police are blamed for giving out too much information and blamed for giving out too little information, at the same time!
OK, file that for suitable treatment….”I am in the smallest room in the house, with your memo in front of me. Your memo is now behind me..” etc.
I think it was entirely reasonable for the police to try and inform the public that this was a troubled woman, who had probably (but not certainly) vanished under her own steam, by intent or misadventure, and not an abduction or serial killer victim, which would indeed have fanned the flames of tabloid hysteria.
You could quite easily argue that informing the public of certain things is for their safety. Alcohol and drug users can be quite aggressive if they’re going through withdrawal or even just out of their minds on whatever their poison of choice is.
Letting people know means they maybe a bit more alert if they approach to see if she needs help, or may just call the police, instead of just walking up and asking if she’s ok and getting punched for the trouble.
“Can you help us find this woman, but be aware she can get a bit lairy?” Doesn’t seem that bad to me.