Diver who assisted in the police hunt for missing mother-of-two Nicola Bulley has denied giving her now-devastated family “false hope.”
After dropping off her two girls at school on January 27, the 45-year-old went missing more than three weeks ago while walking her dog in the community of St Michael’s on Wyre.
A corpse was discovered on Sunday morning a mile from the location where she was last seen 23 days ago, according to Lancashire Police.
Peter Faulding, who joined the police search for three days as a volunteer, had previously insisted: ‘If Nicola was in that river, I would have found her. She is not there.’
But he has now said it is ‘totally unfair’ to suggest he had given her family ‘false hope’, the Sun reported.
‘If I gave them false hope, then what about the police search teams there every day? I was there for three days as a volunteer,’ he said.
Forensic expert explains why he didn’t find body in river in search for Nicola Bulley
‘I think that would be totally unfair to be honest with you, and I would sling the hook and give up searching.’
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Faulding said: ‘I would like to make it very clear that Lancashire Police had searched that area thoroughly with divers, their sonar and their bank search officers.
‘If this is Nicola’s body, then she was not found in the river. She was actually found in the reedbed to the side of the river.
‘Our task was to clear the river, and at the time I can categorically say – and I have the data to prove it – there was no body in the river at the time when we were searching.
‘Our search was not in the reedbed. My focus was around the bench area, and we searched for four hours in that stretch.
‘Hand on heart, I can say we did out best. But the body was not on the river bed, we would have seen it clearly.’
Police were called to reports of a body in the River Wyre, close to Rawcliffe Road, with officers sealing off the area.
A helicopter was seen circling above an outcrop of undergrowth in St Michael’s on Wyre.
The body was found on a stretch of the river, just past a slight bend, a mile or so outside the village, close to where a tree had fallen on its side half in and half outside the water, with branches and undergrowth partially submerged.
A statement from the force said: ‘An underwater search team and specialist officers subsequently attended the scene, entered the water and have sadly recovered a body.
‘No formal identification has yet been carried out, so we are unable to say if this is Nicola Bulley at this time.
‘Procedures to identify the body are on-going. We are currently treating the death as unexplained.’