20 Feb Nicola Bulley: ‘The police should have owned that landscape’ says ex-crime commissioner
THE police “should have owned the landscape” in the search for missing Nicola Bulley, according to a former crime cimmissioner.
Ex-Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner Martyn Underhill told GB News: “This is unhelpful for Lancashire police and of course we now know we’re pretty sure that this is Nicola in the river.
“I think what Keir Starmer has just said is true. I’ve been saying for two weeks that questionable decisions have been made in this case, but they may well be justifiable.
“We do need an external force to review the investigation and the media strategy, which has attracted the most attention, and the TikTok detectives that we’ve never seen before.
“And now of course, the questions being asked about how Nicola was missed in the river, bearing in mind it wasn’t a tidal river, it wasn’t flowing that fast.
“People are a bit surprised that she suddenly had been found less than a mile from where she went missing, so there are quite a few questions.”
Asked about the relationship between the police and the media in a discussion with Mark Longhurst during GB News Live, he said: “It’s interesting how the Leveson inquiry suddenly featured in today’s news.
“A lot of police officers have arrived since Leveson. They don’t contact the press as much as they used to – the relationship doesn’t exist.
“Arguably, the press should be independent from the police, so there’s two sides to that, however.”
On amateur detectives joining the search, Mr Underhill said: “The TikTok detectives, and I have said this for a while, they filled the landscape, they made the noise because the police didn’t, the police should have owned that landscape.
“They should have been doing press briefings every day, because they didn’t, social media, some toxic social media and TikTok detectives took over.
“My worry is that policing UK now has to deal with this template, the next time we have a high profile missing person.
“So I totally support the Home Secretary saying we do need to learn the lessons. And actually, I’m not convinced the IOPC is the right body, it needs an external force.
“The Metropolitan Police has already offered to help to review this in a completely objective way and let the Bulley family to grieve the tragic loss.”
