Nicola Bulley: Friend urges public not to help with search - 'It's not really helping'

A friend of Nicola Bulley has urged the public not to help with the search for the missing mother-of-two, saying it is “not really helping”.

Emma White, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme two weeks to the day since Bulley disappeared in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire, said the search needs to be carried out in a “systematic” way.

It comes as police have been given the power to break up groups causing a nuisance in the village amid reports of people coming into St Michael’s on Wyre and filming properties for use on social media.

Officers had previously warned members of the public not to “take the law into their own hands” by breaking into empty or derelict riverside properties to try to find Bulley.

White, asked about the new police powers, urged visitors to stay away.

“People are offering to come and help but that’s not really helping the situation,” she added.

“Ultimately, we all want to bring Nikki home but we need to do it in a logical, systematic way and we have to leave it to the police.”

White added the two weeks since her friend went missing have been “like torture”.

“You expect to be rewarded for when you put hard work in, so we just need something, anything, a piece of information that can lead us down a different inquiry.”

On Friday, friends of Bulley gathered for a roadside appeal, holding banners and placards featuring her photograph, in a plea to “bring Nikki home”.

Police believe the 45-year-old fell in the River Wyre while walking her springer spaniel Willow on 27 January.

The focus of the search has now shifted from where Bulley vanished to further downstream, towards where the River Wyre empties into the Irish Sea at Morecambe Bay.

Read more: Expert diver says video is 'proof' Nicola Bulley didn't fall in river

Lancashire Police has dismissed any suggestion Bulley is a victim of crime and say the scale of the missing person inquiry is “unprecedented”, involving 40 detectives and following 500 lines of inquiry.

Bulley’s family also called in help from Peter Faulding, of Specialist Group International, a private company which specialises in underwater searches, but after a three-day search earlier this week, no trace of Bulley was found.

Faulding said his searches confirmed Bulley was not in the section of river searched by his team and police divers, but described himself as “baffled” after ending his fruitless search.