Death of Nicola Bulley, Lancashire UK

I no its the most likely scenario - but Im just pointing out nothing has been confirmed yet.

Pretty sure he always maintained she could be in reeds as the sonar doesn't go into reeds.

He also always maintained she wasn't in the part that the sonar had checked.

Once I heard he'd recently released a book it was obvious he entered this for publicity.

But he's also been constantly accused of saying things that he didn't say. But he's brought on that scrutiny himself

On the 7th February he said:

Mr Faulding said: "Bodies can get lodged in reeds and show up months later, the sonar won't go into the reeds."

So he is basing his statements on the assumption that the police divers and search would have covered the reeds.

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/nicola-bulley-search-expert-fears-26174137

Yeah, he stated the sonar can't go into reeds after her body was found in the reeds. Not a mention of them to my recollection all the time he was doing multiple media interviews and claiming she wasn't in the river - before, during and after his search. It's only now he's saying that he said all along that she could be in the reeds, but If you have a source where he said she could be in the reeds from before she was found, I'd be glad to be corrected.

As for what he stated, it's blatantly clear and there on the record. Here's just one of the many interviews where he said the same thing, repeatedly and definitively:

Of course now that he's been proved wrong, he's rowing back. But let's not have our intelligence insulted with crude mental gymnastics.

"Lancashire constabulary said they had received a call at 11.36am on Sunday about a body in the River Wyre, close to Rawcliffe Road, within a mile of where Bulley was last seen."

Fair enough, he mentioned reeds once.

And then in the same interview went on to double down on his instance that he was ruling out the river (and that he thought that there was 3rd party involvement, which is speculation completely unbecoming of a search and rescue volunteer).

On balance, he said much, much more about her not being in the river at all than he did about the possibility that she might be in some reeds that he couldn't search.

It's like the publicity went to his head and he got completely carried away. If he had stuck to the bare facts, that he was only searching the river bed of a particular stretch, no-one would have thought any worse of him. But he constantly made statements that went much, much further than that, and he's been caught out now.

Fair play to family. Called out media brilliantly. Scumbags

But there would have been no vacuum if they'd added the vulnerability part to their update from the outset.

Then when her family/freinds were being interviewed by news outlets there wouldn't have been any ambiguity. Instead people watched those interviews under the impression this could only be an accident or foul play and started filling in their own gaps.

The truth was there was a much more plausible 3rd option.

Look hindsight is 20/20, the police obviously thought they were doing right by Nicola by holding that info back but it backfired on them. I doubt they'll do that in any future missing person cases.

as I said her own family fuelled these flames her partner saying he was 100% sure Nicola was NOT in the river. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/10/nicola-bulley-partner-convinced-not-in-river-paul-ansell

Cue the whole country checking out garden sheds, digging up fields! It was crazy!

The sun and daily mail were about to run stories. That's why the personal information was let out.