The expert brought in by Nicola Bulley’s partner today claimed he can categorically prove he found her within six minutes and how the police then let down her family.
Today, for the first time, Peter Faulding has released exclusive sonar footage of the moment he believes he discovered the missing mother-of-two in the River Wyre on February 7, 2023.
And an independent expert has viewed the video and believes Peter was right when he was convinced he had located a human body just 360 seconds into his search.
The Daily Mail has decided not to publish the footage in full out of respect for Nicola’s family.
Police have declined to comment on the evidence and stand by their claims that the ‘target’ area in the water was properly searched and was either ‘nothing’ or a tree branch.
But an independent expert has confirmed that having seen the never-before-seen footage he believes Mr Faulding did find a body in the river at St Michael’s on Wyre. And crucially it measures 5ft 3ins – or 161cm – approximately the same height as Nicola.
Neil McDonagh, one of the UK’s leading sonar operators for search and rescue purposes, was shown the sonar data on a new episode of the Geographic Profiler Podcast, released today.
When asked if it could be a branch or simply nothing at all, Mr McDonagh declares: ‘That certainly appears to be a human’.
Ms Bulley was last seen on the morning of Friday January 27 2023 when she was spotted walking her dog. Her phone was found on a bench still connected to on a conference call
Peter using his side-scan sonar on the River Wyre hunting for Nicola. Today he has released the footage for the first time, claiming that it proves police should have found her sooner
Describing his professional view as he watched the sonar footage in real time he said: ‘I see limbs. Am I seeing human form? I am seeing what looks like buttocks, heading to a lower back, a torso and what might be the front of the head. Something is stretched out, which look like arms.
‘When I look closely I see legs in almost a semi crouch position. It would certainly appear to be human form.
‘On the port side there is quite a prolonged large shadow, which is an unusual shape. That is not what you would see with natural features such as tree branches or a vegetation.
‘Based on my experience that is a human form. If that matched the height of the individual then that would be a credible target for me’.
The College of Policing, who in November 2023 published a 140-page independent review into the case, stand by their report.
They insisted that the police diver searched the area Mr Faulding flagged.
They also reiterated that they then got an expert view from an unnamed ‘leading government sonar specialist’ who told them that they had ‘low confidence that the images were that of a human casualty’.
Mr Faulding has also shared new of the Wyre’s slow-moving and shallow water during the search, which he and other experts believe calls into question claims that Ms Bulley could have been swept away.
The mystery of Nicola’s sudden disappearance became one of the highest profile missing person’s investigations of recent times in Britain and as it went on it gained global attention.
It ended with the tragic discovery of her body by a dog walker three weeks later.
Her inquest concluded that her death was accidental, caused by drowning from cold water shock after falling into the River Wyre.
Coroner Dr James Adeley ruled out suicide and any criminal involvement by a third party.
Mr Faulding was approached by Mrs Bulley’s partner Paul Ansell a week after she vanished.
Peter came to Lancashire free of charge – but only after police agreed to his presence. ‘We did not ask for money or receive any’, he said.
But he claims Lancashire Police were ‘hostile’ towards him and told him to ‘pack up and leave’ within 48 hours despite finding what he believed was Nicola’s body and being arguably Britain’s top rescue and forensic search specialist in water.
His personal and professional reputation was questioned by Lancashire Constabulary and the College of Policing, who reviewed their probe.
Mr Faulding claims his £55,000 high-frequency sonar device – towed beside an inflatable dinghy – was able to provide a ‘crystal clear’ image of the entire riverbed and located her body.
Peter told the Mail today he is convinced that she entered the water 75 metres down from the bench – close to a small island in the Wyre.
He said of the bench where Nicola’s phone was found: ‘It could have been stage, a decoy. But the area was never treated as a crime scene so any trace evidence is gone’.
He has urged detectives to ‘look again’ at the case, declaring: ‘Lancashire Police always suggested that Nicola fell in in front of the bench. But this is impossible due to the shallow depth right at the bottom of the bank below the bench.
‘Had Nicola fallen into the river near the bench, she would have landed on a ledge of rocks at the river’s edge, shallow enough to stand up on.
‘I believe Nicola went in where I found her by the island.
‘Given the relatively calm river conditions especially at the river’s edge, Nicola Bulley’s strong swimming ability, her familiarity with the area, and the absence of clear evidence for an accidental fall, I do not believe her death was simply an accidental drowning. The case deserves further scrutiny’.
A picture from the bench of the depth and clarity of water that police believe Nicola fell into
Peter’s boat passes the ‘island’ area where he and another expert believe that a body was spotted on sonar but missed
Paul Ansell, partner of Nicola Bulley, speaks to Peter Faulding from the spot on the River Wyre where police believe his partner went missing. Paul has asked Peter to help with the search after police struggled to find her
Lancashire Police has declined to comment today, as did Nicola’s family.
Mr Faulding says he was never asked to give evidence at her inquest despite his central role in the case. He and his company Specialist Group International are mentioned dozens of times in the College of Policing report.
He has spoken in detail to the Daily Mail and on an episode of the Geographic Profiler Podcast, presented by Douglas MacGregor.
Mr MacGregor is a geographic profiler and forensic intelligence consultant who helps law enforcement and search teams with complex cases.
In his podcast Mr Faulding claims:
- Police missed Nicola’s body and then refused to let his team dive. ‘From my analysis I am certain the sonar return was Nicola’, he says.
- He made repeated offers to share his vital sonar data with police and the College of Policing, who reviewed the Lancashire Constabulary investigation but this was ‘ignored’;
- Mr Faulding admits he was wrong to say Nicola was not in the river at the time – but insists he was repeating what the police divers had told him and not upset her family;
Police believe that Nicola died in a tragic accident and her body travelled over the River Wyre’s weir towards the sea on the day she disappeared, January 27, 2023.
Today Peter Faulding has shared footage from during the search showing how shallow and slow-moving the river was, calling the theory she was swept along ‘impossible’.
‘My video taken on February 7 shows the river not moving. The stick did not move for 20 minutes’, he said.
Douglas MacGregor, a forensic expert who works with the police and FBI in the US, has also raised questions about the accuracy of the flow-rates cited by police at the time and whether it is possible that Nicola was swept away so quickly.
Critics of Mr Faulding told the Mail that his claims contradict previous statements he made at the time when he told the media ‘there was no sign of Nicola’ in the river.
But in response he has said he was told by police divers there was ‘nothing there’ and trusted the police, but privately confided in his team that ‘something was not right’.
He admits he was wrong to have said at the time that ‘if Nicola was there, I would have found her’, because he believes he did.
He scanned the river, and found a ‘target’ in six minutes and shared the location with detectives.
But a Lancashire Police diver failed to find her, first saying it was ‘nothing’ and then a tree branch.
The diver in question later told College of Policing review they were ‘100% sure that there was no body in that part of the water at that time’.
‘It is not very often I dive in such an unobstructed body of water with such a flat bottom and with visibility,’ they added.
Nicola and Paul in happier times
He had been asked by Nicola’s partner Paul Ansell to help the police with the search for his partner after they failed to find her in the days after she vanished on January 27, 2023.
Mr Faulding was approached on February 5 and arrived in St Michael’s on Wyre on February 6.
He is convinced he found Nicola’s body ‘after just six minutes’ of scanning the river at 10.32am that day.
He sent the target location to police a minute later. At 1.20pm police searched and said it was ‘nothing’.
At 4.30pm Peter rescanned the area. Passing closer to the target. No disturbance to ground, which you’d expect to see if properly searched, he claims.
He believes that the police diver either missed her or worse, didn’t even check the right spot.
He and Neil McDonagh say the ground around the target had not been disturbed according to a later scan.
‘I pushed a stick into the riverbank to mark the rough area for the police divers. At 1.21pm, after a short dive, the police diver reported there was “nothing there”,’ Mr Faulding said.
‘I was surprised at this result as a sonar anomaly cannot be created by nothing. My diving supervisor and another member of my team witnessed the dive whilst I continued upriver conducting further scans for the purpose of steering the media’s attention away from the dive.
‘Unconvinced by the diver’s findings, later that day, my team and I re-scanned the area several times and obtained more detailed images by moving the boat closer to the riverbank.
‘To clarify, the image captured at 10.32am shows just the symmetrical shadows of the arms. The images captured in the afternoon, show not only the shadow but a clear image of what looks like a body laying on the right side, bent legs, bottom, outstretched arms and a head.
‘Interestingly, in both the morning and afternoon scans, there appeared to be no ground disturbance around the anomaly or any movement of the shadows.
‘Firstly, if there was “nothing” there would not be a shadow or a shape, it’s impossible. Secondly, for a thorough search to have been conducted, any find including tree branches as was later reported, would need to have been moved to ensure that there was nothing concealed beneath, leaving disturbances and drag marks on the riverbed.
‘These disturbances would have been visible on the sonar scans captured in the afternoon after the police dive, yet none appeared. Additionally, if the find had been moved, the resulting shadow would have shifted would be different, but there is no difference in either scan’.
He added: ‘I requested permission to dive at that location, but this was declined. I asked again to search the following morning, and that request was also declined. We did everything possible within the law and the framework of the police operation’.
Police divers searching the water on February 7 – the day Mr Faulding flagged a potential target to them. They say the area was properly searched and nothing was found
Officers in charge then refused a request for his team to check themselves – and then on February 8 he was told to pack up his equipment and leave’, Mr Faulding claims.
The shape in the water picked up by Mr Faulding’s sonar equipment on board his boat resembles a body in a foetal position.
Mr Faulding says he offered even to send it to Lancashire Police and the College of Policing, but they never responded.
Yet Andy Marsh, chief executive of the College of Policing, who carried out a review of Lancashire Police’s handling of the case said when the report was released: ‘Nothing could have been done, that we saw, that would have led to Nicola’s body being found sooner’.
He added: ‘The area was searched after that report and there was nothing there’.
But Mr McDonagh also suggested Mr Marsh made claims that defy the laws of physics.
‘The presence of a shadow shows that something is there. It’s a law of physics. Can a sonar target be nothing? It can not be a person, it must be something else. But a target in a sonar image means that something is categorically there’, he said.
Mr Faulding insists that police prolonged the ordeal for Nicola’s family for a full 12 days until she was discovered by a dog walker on February 19, 2023.
‘No experts have ever seen the live data. There needs to be a full inquiry into why the data was never looked at and who the experts are’, he said.
‘You tell me why this is not a body’, he said pointing to the sonar image he believes was Nicola.
‘All they have looked at is a PDF image on a piece of paper that I emailed to them.
‘I will go into any front of any expert and any witness in a court of law and ask how they have made a judgment on one of the high profile cases in recent history using a pdf’.
He told the Mail he is speaking out now to try and help others, not cause more grief for Nicola’s family.
‘This podcast has been produced for Nicola, for her family and for every family who, in the midst of the most unimaginable grief, deserves the certainty that everything possible is being done to find their missing loved one and bring them home as fast as possible’.
The College of Policing declined to give a statement to the Mail on claims in the podcast but pointed to their report from November 2023, which said his behaviour at the time had resulted in ‘unwarranted distress and false alarm’.
According to the 140-page independent review, the site Peter said contained the ‘target’ was searched properly on multiple occasions.
‘The diver provided their own record of this dive to the review team. The coordinates of the images that they record of that dive match exactly those of SGI’s images. This diver also provided the primary dive evidence to the coroner at the inquest into Nicola’s death’, the College of Policing said.
‘To supplement this, and to provide an independent view, the review team contacted a leading government sonar specialist for their opinion of the sonar images taken by SGI on 7 February. They provided the expert view that they had “low confidence that the images were that of a human casualty”.
The ‘target’ in the Wyre had been properly ‘eliminated’ during the police search, with ‘comprehensive’ reasons given for why they considered it had not been recently disturbed, the CofP said.
Mr Faulding says that police are failing families with a lack of equipment and teams to search water. He claims they are waiting for bodies to ‘pop up’
The police investigation became a test case for other forces on how not to handle communications with the press and public.
Unclear statements and a lack of regular information sparked a rush of conspiracy theorists and armchair detectives to head to the area to hunt for clues.
Detectives even made the extraordinary decision to reveal Nicola’s private medical details – including the claim that she had developed a problem with alcohol due to the menopause.
But it emerged in her inquest that when she died there was no alcohol in her system whatsoever.
Mr Faulding has said that most major police forces now no longer have divers or specialist teams or equipment to search for missing people.
Many forces have adopted a ‘pop up’ approach, waiting for the bodies of missing people to surface over days and weeks rather than find them immediately.
‘I want to advocate for improvements in how future missing persons cases are handled, particularly with regard to ensuring that appropriate expertise and technology are employed from the outset. I believe families deserve better’, he said today.
‘Over the past decade, efficiency drives, and budget cuts have led many police forces across the UK to disband their dedicated underwater search teams. Today, only eleven such units remain across the United Kingdom. In some regions, there is now no meaningful marine capability at all’.
He added: ‘The events surrounding the search and the subsequent College of Policing report have had a serious impact on both my personal and professional reputation’.
He has thanks his supporters for the backing he has been given by the public and fellow professionals.
Police officer turned journalist Mark Williams Thomas told the podcast: ‘Peter devotes himself to the families he is helping. He covers the costs himself and the criticism given to him is utterly unfair. He is not a TV presenter or give interviews – he was there to help the family at their request. He is devoted to them.
‘He has better equipment than the police. Most forces don’t do underwater search and he provides that to them.
‘That criticism is unfair. Peter has put himself on the line and had gone out with his own team.,
‘He was made a scapegoat. Faulding was brought in as an expert and hung out to dry when it went sideways.
‘The police’s reputation was preserved while his was sacrificed’.
Former Met officer Peter Bleksley said previously that it took three days until a senior investigating officer was allocated to the case.
As a result there was no preservation of the scene around the bench, he claimed.
‘They clearly, at an early stage, made their minds up way too early and got it wrong’, he said.
Timeline: Disappearance of Nicola Bulley in 2023
January 27
At 8.26am Ms Bulley left her home with her two daughters, aged six and nine, dropping them off at school.
She then took her spaniel, Willow, for a walk along the path by the River Wyre at 8.43am, heading towards a gate and bench in the lower field.
She was seen by a dog walker who knew her at around 8.50am, and their pets interacted briefly before they parted ways, according to the force.
At 8.53am, Ms Bulley sent an email to her boss, followed by a message to her friends six minutes later, before logging on to a Microsoft Teams call at 9.01am.
She was seen by a second witness at 9.10am, the last known sighting.
Her phone was back in the area of the bench at 9.20am before the Teams call ended 10 minutes later, with her mobile remaining logged on after the call.
At 10.50am, Ms Bulley’s family and the school attended by her children were told about her disappearance.
Lancashire Constabulary launched an investigation into Ms Bulley’s whereabouts on the same day and appealed for witnesses to contact them.
January 28
Lancashire Constabulary deployed drones, helicopters and police search dogs as part of the major missing person operation.
They were assisted by Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, as well as Bowland Pennine mountain rescue team and the North West underwater search team.
January 29
Local residents held a meeting at the village hall to organise a search for Ms Bulley at 10.30am on Sunday, according to reports from The Mirror, and around 100 people joined in.
Police urged volunteers to exercise caution, describing the river and its banks as ‘extremely dangerous’ and saying that activity in these areas presented ‘a genuine risk to the public’
January 30
Superintendent Sally Riley from Lancashire Constabulary said police were ‘keeping a really open mind about what could have happened’, and that they were not treating Ms Bulley’s disappearance as suspicious.
January 31 Lancashire Constabulary spoke with a potential witness, a man who had been walking a small white fluffy dog near the River Wyre at the time of Ms Bulley’s disappearance.
Her family released a statement saying they had been ‘overwhelmed by the support’ in their community, and that her daughters were ‘desperate to have their mummy back home safe’.
February 2
Lancashire Constabulary spoke with a second witness who they had identified with the help of the public using CCTV but they told police they did not have any further information to aid their inquiry.
Officers from the North West Police Underwater and Marine support unit searched the area close to where Ms Bulley’s mobile phone was found, while police divers scoured the River Wyre. Meanwhile, Ms Bulley’s family appealed to the public for help tracing her.
February 3
Lancashire Police said it was working on the hypothesis that Ms Bulley may have fallen into the River Wyre.
Ms Riley urged against speculation, but said it was ‘possible’ that an ‘issue’ with Ms Bulley’s dog may have led her to the water’s edge.
February 4
Lancashire Police announced it wanted to trace a ‘key witness’ who was seen pushing a pram in the area near where Ms Bulley went missing on the morning of her disappearance.
February 5
The woman described as a ‘key witness’ by police came forward. The force insisted she was ‘very much being treated as a witness’ as it warned against ‘totally unacceptable’ speculation and abuse on social media.
February 6
Ms Bulley’s friends said they hoped the help of a specialist underwater rescue team would give the family answers.
Meanwhile, Ms Bulley’s partner Mr Ansell, in a statement released through Lancashire Police, said: ‘It’s been 10 days now since Nicola went missing and I have two little girls who miss their mummy desperately and who need her back.
‘This has been such a tough time for the girls especially but also for me and all of Nicola’s family and friends, as well as the wider community and I want to thank them for their love and support.’
February 6
Peter Faulding, leader of underwater search experts Specialist Group International (SGI), began searching the river after being called in by Ms Bulley’s family.
February 7
Mr Faulding stops his search
February 10
Police urged people to refrain from indulging in commentary and conspiracy theories about Ms Bulley’s disappearance as speculation increases online.
February 15
Police held a press conference over the case and say the mother-of-two was classed as a ‘high-risk’ missing person immediately after she was reported missing due to ‘vulnerabilities.’
They later disclosed Ms Bulley’s struggles with alcohol and perimenopause.
February 16
In a statement released through Lancashire Police, Ms Bulley’s family said the focus had become ‘distracted from finding Nikki, and more about speculation and rumours into her private life’ and called for it to end.
Lancashire Police referred itself to the police watchdog over contact the force had with Ms Bulley prior to her disappearance.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman demanded an ‘explanation’ for the disclosure of Ms Bulley’s private information by the force.
February 17
Lancashire Police announced it was conducting an internal review into the handling of Ms Bulley’s disappearance and the Information Commissioner said he would ask the force questions about the disclosure.
February 18
Ms Braverman met with police leaders to discuss the handling of the investigation after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also expressed ‘concerns’ about the revelation.
February 19
Appearing on the morning broadcast round, Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt described the police disclosure as ‘shocking’ while shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, who also wrote to the force over its handling of the case, repeated her concerns about the ‘unusual’ level of private information made public about Ms Bulley.
A new search effort was launched less than a mile from where Ms Bulley vanished.
Later on Sunday, Lancashire Police announced they had found a body in the River Wyre. It is confirmed as Nicola.
