An expert diver claimed he found Nicola Bulley’s body “within a doubt” “within six minutes” as he responded to a police review of the missing mother’s case criticizing his role in the search.
An independent investigation found that Peter Faulding made “contradictory” statements to the media about what happened to Ms Bulley and that police felt some of his activities “caused difficulties to the investigation”.
Mr Faulding had made a private search of the River Wyre on February 19 for the mother-of-two, who was found about a mile from where she disappeared while walking her dog in St Michael’s, Lancashire, three weeks earlier.
The investigation concluded that his death was accidental, that he fell into the river on the day he disappeared and died immediately in the cold water.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Faulding said he and his company, Specialist Group International (SGI), arrived at St Michaels on the Wyre on February 6 to assist in the search for Ms Bulley and found no sign of her in a section of the river. that day.
But the next day police told Mr Faulding’s team to investigate what the diver called the “hot zone”, a non-tidal area in front of the bench where Ms Bulley’s phone was found up to the weir. “In our experience, if Nicola had gone into the water here, this is most likely the area where she would have been found,” Mr Faulding said.
At 10:34 a.m., six minutes after starting the search, the diver said he found “a significant target, in my experience, shaped like a human” about 75 meters below the bench.
Mr Faulding said he called Lancashire Police Search Advisor in less than 20 minutes to explain his findings, sent an image of what he saw and requested that SGI divers be put into the waters “immediately” to check the area.
However, he claimed that his request for this dive was rejected, claiming that he was told that the North West Underwater Search Unit (NWUSU) would carry out the dive that afternoon.
He claimed he told the NWUSU team that “the target was determined to be ‘nothing.'” “This surprised me deeply because I am usually not wrong when locating a target, especially a body that shows a clear signature. Sonar shadows cannot be created by ‘nothing’.”
He claimed that at 4.30pm that day, his team “secretly re-scanned the same area showing the same target in the same location”.
Mr Faulding said: “Having worked closely with the police and police diving teams for many years, I had nothing but respect for them and instinctive confidence in their abilities and no reason to doubt their findings.
“Although I thought I had found a very credible target, I accepted that I might have been wrong and made a statement to the media that afternoon saying there was no sign of Nicola and that I did not think she was in the river. ”
Mr Faulding said a request from the Lancashire Police Search Advisor to re-sweep the same area of the river was rejected the next morning on the grounds that “the target area was clear”.
He said: “After thoroughly searching our assigned sections of the river and finding no other targets, I decided to abandon the search. I had no further contact with Lancashire Constabulary after leaving the scene; “Unusually, they did not request our call records or sonar data.”
He reviewed sonar files in preparation for the investigation, to which he said he was not invited, and claimed that as the footage was enhanced it became clear “the target I found was undoubtedly Nicola”.
He said: “I actually found Nicola at 10.34am on 7 February 2023 after just 6 minutes of searching. “The enhanced sonar file, taken at 16.30 on 7 February 2023, clearly shows Nicola lying on the right side of her body in a fetal position, with her legs bent.”
Although Ms Bulley’s body was found at a different point in the river, Mr Faulding said he believed this was because “decomposition gases in her body had accumulated to such an extent that they brought her to the surface” and she was then dragged downriver, over the weir and into the pond. the tidal section of the river “where it is finally deposited into its final resting place”.
The independent review said the diver who investigated the area of interest identified by Mr Faulding said the find “was submerged tree branches and was therefore cleared as a negative”. He added that NWPUSMU had searched the same area before with negative results.
It was also stated that the review team asked a leading government sonar expert for his opinion, and that expert concluded that “they had low confidence that the images were of a human casualty.”
The report added: “This finding had been adequately investigated by the search team at the time and was determined to be an adverse finding. This was further supported by expert opinion of images obtained from two independent scientists during this review.”
Tuesday’s Constabulary-led report also said Mr Faulding told the Bulley family he thought he had located a body cache (the location or place where a deceased body is believed to have been found).
As part of the review, Lancashire Constabulary alleged that this had caused undue distress and a false alarm, leading to police resources being diverted to the family to rectify the situation.
The report continues: “Lancashire Constabulary’s view is that Mr Faulding had a significant impact on the investigation and public confidence through his activities and his dealings with the media.
“The investigation team feels that some of his actions created a more challenging environment for the investigation team.
“His public statements frequently contradicted the investigative and operational approach, which led to public confusion and diminished the family’s confidence in the investigation and search operation.”
Mr Faulding told the authors of the report that he had not been advised or supported by any media guidance by Lancashire Constabulary, nor had he received any instructions not to engage with the press.