so what have we got well The Mirror Has splashed on the awful news today that a body has been
found in the river without wire three weeks after local mum Nicola bully went missing nearby while
walking her dog and the process of identifying the body is now underway and we don't yet know
if it is Nicola or some other poor soul but John her partner Paul Ansel has said that he has no
words about this and it's just Agony it's the news that they've dreaded for three weeks this isn't it
yeah he's absolutely awful and you just think this poor family the last few weeks must have been
complete Health the more this uncertainty what's happened and then yesterday the discovery of
this body obviously body's not yet been formally identified but it's not looking particularly great
and I think that people now are starting to ask questions about what the police have done in this
case what they've done on the search obviously it looks like this body was found about a mile
away from where Nicola bully was last seen there's questions about those diving searches that they've
done in the river had they looked properly is it possible that the body's gone further Downstream
and then come back up on the tide and obviously it will take a lot of time for those answers to come
out there's also questions about how the police have communicated in this case we know that on one
level it's been quite different we've never had a case where we've had so many Tick-Tock detectives
people just going out with their mobile phone we know that a lot of them have just been put
wild theories out on tick tocks and they've been digging up part of the Woodland round
where Nicola bully was last seen so they've been particularly disruptive for the police but you've
got to ask questions about how the police have handled this case when you had things
like last week when there was that model where they gave this press conference and said that
they wanted to kind of end speculation and say that that she had specific vulnerabilities which
obviously didn't end speculation it just created a whole new level of speculation about what these
specific vulnerabilities were and then you had the police going out there further and saying
that she'd struggled with alcohol in the past that she'd been struggling with the menopause and then
big questions about was that appropriate was that helpful in the search for Nicola bully or was it
just a new distraction and kind of whipped up this frenzy of all these people posting World frenzies
uh World theories online even more than it was in the first place exactly does it does it help find
her that's the question if you say that someone's got alcohol problems or is struggling with a
menopause and there are many people struggle the menopause who don't end up in a river but
does that help anybody track her down and if not then why are you talking about it
because that you know whether whether you're looking for a body or looking for a witness
or or looking for Nicola alive somewhere then you why would you say it it doesn't help in
whatever it is you're doing now get into the comments everybody be within reason please
um ask us your questions what do you think about how the police investigation has gone as well as
the issue of iding this body that they've found Pathologists are going to be trying to establish
the cause of death and unfortunately as John mentioned there there are a lot of Internet
ghouls already making things more difficult for example by breaching police barriers around the
site where the body's been found trying to get to the scene it would appear just for clicks rather
than for any decent good well-founded reason and the net result is that if there is anything found
by forensic Specialists any kind of evidence that could be there that forensic Specialists could
find whether it's Footprints whether it's signs that Nikki tried to get out of the river things
that would help in a future inquest or even if there was a murder involved the evidence would
have been destroyed by these trespasses now one of the questions people already asking is how it's
possible to miss this body for three weeks when the river's been combed by police by a freelance
underwater sonar crew we saw there in the clip when the banks have been searching gully's like
the one this body was found found in should also have been investigated it apparently his body was
spotted by dog walkers now the dog walker couldn't spot it you'd have thought some policemen could
who are looking for a body would have spotted it now John regardless of whether this is nickel
or a lot like you say something's gone very very wrong this whole thing's been conducted isn't it
oh definitely and you know it is hard for a local police force when you suddenly have all of this
scrutiny we haven't had so many of these cases in recent years where there has been a high profile
missing person case we know that if you're a local police force and you suddenly have all
these hundreds of journalists to send on you you're Suddenly at the center of the national
news agenda and people are picking over every little bit of the operation we know that's quite
difficult but that is just what happens with big police investigations that is something that is
naturally going to happen and in a case like this where you know it was it seems such a mystery no
one really had a proper idea of what had happened you can see why there was a lot of interest she
was a young mom she was just doing something quite ordinary that a lot of people do on you know any
other day of the week just going out dropping her kids off at school and then taking the dog walk a
dog out for a walk so you can see why a lot of people identified with her kind of thought gosh
that could easily have been me you know there are similarities between me and my life so you can see
why there was this massive public interest and I'm not sure the police always use that to the
advantage you know there's ways you can use that to kind of get the message out there that you want
people to get hand over their dash cam footage from their cars you want people to kind of rack
their brains but did they say anything unusual in the area but I think at some times the police just
struggle to really work out what they wanted to communicate to the public and when and then they
left this vacuum where you've got people just coming up with this mad stuff on Tick Tock and
even on my Tick Tock feed this morning you know I came across this video this guide filmed where
he was trying to get past the police cord and last night as they were looking at what they'd
found and you just think gosh this is just truly disgusting really and there's been people on the
radio talking about how there were people with their phones trying to get pictures of the body
being taken away from the river and you just think oh some people have got I think there's a question
here obviously this question might please and the search but there's also questions about
people posting stuff on Tick Tock and then just chasing hits and so desperate to kind of just
get loads of likes and kind of loads of attention that they have kind of just put aside all kind of
morals and decency and it just kind of just going absolutely mad really and I know it's just Holly
bone the reporter's been covering it for us uh up in the north west was on here last week excuse me
I said that it was partly to do mostly she thought to do with sort of the age of social media and the
fact that sort of dissociates people rather than bringing people closer together closer together
in instances like this it dissociates them from what's Happening and they go to arm's length and
they think that's almost not like a the real human side of it just seems to get lost now
Zoe says has the identity been confirmed no it hasn't Zoe and that's a process that's underway
right now there'll be a number of different ways that they're going to try to confirm identity of
the body that they've found it could be Nikki it could be someone else we don't know when
they are trying to find that identity they'll be taking DNA they'll be using dental records
they'll be using you know whatever clothes if any of the body was found in that sort of thing
and they'll also be trying to find uh the cause of death and until everyone has kind of got that
and knows what some of those answers are all the speculation really I'm gonna have to drink it easy
um excuse me I'm just getting over a lurgy ah my throat's not really up to this
um until that speculation is over we don't really know what the answer to
those questions are so our hearts go out to Nick and his family and let's just hope that
they can get these deeds and as Paul says their lessons need to be learned all around after this
tragic case particularly I think um by some of the people on Tick Tock it would appear