Police searching for Nicola Bulley have appealed for a “key” witness who they believe was in the area on the morning of the mother-of-two’s disappearance.
The witness is a woman seen pushing a pram on the morning of Friday 27 January, when Ms Bulley went missing.
The woman was seen walking along Garstang Road / Blackpool Lane in the village of St Michael’s on Wyre, from the direction of Allotment Lane towards the Grapes pub, at around 8.22am.
She is again seen walking on Allotment Lane towards Garstang Road just under 20 minutes later at 8.41am.
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A spokesperson for Lancashire Police, which is conducting the search, said: “It is believed that the female in question may have walked along the river path during these times and so detectives want to speak to her and urge her to get in touch.”
Anyone who was driving or cycling down Blackpool Lane / Garstang Lane on 27 January between 9am and 10am and has dashcam footage is also asked to contact police.
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The force spokesperson added that it was crucial to gather as much footage as possible from the area on that morning to “review every piece meticulously” and establish whether Nicola can be seen.
Image: Mum-of-two Nicola Bulley
“We know from the footage we are currently reviewing, that this is a busy road, particularly at that time in the morning,” they added.
“There will be many people who were in that area at the time who may not think they can help, however we would urge you not to make that decision yourself and to come forward so we can have as much material as possible to assist the investigation.”
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3:24
Police hunting for missing mother-of-two Nicola Bulley say they are zeroing in on a 10-minute window where the 45-year-old’s movements are unaccounted for.
Crucial 10-minute window
Ms Bulley, 45, was last seen walking her dog on a footpath by the River Wyre in St Michael’s on Friday morning.
A timeline pieced together by the force found she logged into a work conference call on Microsoft Teams at 9.01am.
Nine minutes later a witness who knows Ms Bulley said they saw her on the upper field walking her dog, Willow, which was off her lead.
This is the last confirmed sighting of her.
At 9.20am, police believe her phone was left on a bench by the river.
At 9.30am, the work conference call ended but she stayed connected – before her phone was found three minutes later on the bench by another dog walker.
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He said he was focused on supporting their daughters, aged six and nine, but added: “I don’t know how I am coping.
“I don’t want to think about that.”
Friends and family told Sky News correspondent Katerina Vittozzi it was “too soon for condolences”, and say they are not ready to accept the police’s theory that Ms Bulley fell into the river.
They have now set up a community search hub at the village tennis club where people are invited to take a map of the local area and try and help.
‘It’s too soon for condolences’ say Nicola Bulley’s friends and family
This is a small Lancashire town in a desperate search, where no one wants to give up looking.
Nicola Bulley’s friends say it’s too soon for condolences, that the police’s theory, that Nicola fell into the river, is not one they can, as yet, accept.
Ms Bulley’s friend, Heather Gibbons, told Sky News: “As far as we are aware, there is no evidence that she is in that water.”
She praised the police for the “incredible” amount of resources devoted to the river, but added: “This is not adding up and it’s not adding up on a huge, huge scale, which makes you think, ‘well then, there has to still be hope’, because we’re missing something, something is not making sense.”
Now Ms Bulley’s friends and family have established a community search hub in the village tennis club, where people can come, take a map of the local area and try and help.
Lal Kilpatrick, a search volunteer who has known the missing mother-of-two for 20 years, said she wanted to help during what she described as a “distressing time for the family”.
Meanwhile strangers are also offering their support, including Lee Ward, who has never met Ms Bulley or her family but felt compelled to help.
“I saw it on the news, it eats you up inside thinking what they are going through,” Mr Ward told Sky News.
For Nicola Bulley’s friends and family, there are still far more questions than answers right now.
The police investigation has been extensive, it has covered 15km of rivers all the way down to the sea but it’s still here, the fields where Nicola was last seen, and where her phone and dog were found, that continues to draw people, all with the same question – what happened that morning?
Specialists and divers from HM Coastguard, mountain rescue and Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service have been deployed to assist the search, in addition to sniffer dogs, drones and police helicopters.
A team of detectives have been working to analyse telephone communication, house to house enquiries, CCTV, dashcam footage and other digital enquiries, Lancashire Police said.
Forensics search and rescue expert Peter Faulding told Sky News he has been left “mystified” by the “strange” circumstances of Ms Bulley’s disappearance.
Mr Faulding, who has worked on hundreds of cases, said the tidal nature of the River Wye has presented difficulties for police during the search operation.
But he added: “I mean, the phone being found, a bench; normally, if someone would trip, they would have their phone in their hand.
Image: Police officers on the River Wyre, in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire searching for Ms Bulley
“You know, the dog being dry; going after dogs, this is why a lot of people drown. They jump after their dogs.
“But the dog was found dry, so it clearly didn’t go in the river, and that’s what gets my suspicion about this case is it’s a very, very odd one.”
Ms Bulley is described as 5ft 3in tall, with light brown shoulder-length hair, which was tied in a ponytail when she disappeared.
She speaks with an Essex accent and was last seen wearing an ankle-length black quilted gilet, with a black long-sleeved waist-length Vector coat underneath.
She was also wearing tight black jeans, long green walking socks tucked into her jeans and ankle-length green wellington boots from Next.
The mum-of-two was also wearing a necklace and a pale blue Fitbit.
Ms Bulley’s family are being supported by specially trained police officers who are keeping them fully updated.
A 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy have been found guilty of the manslaughter of an 80-year-old dog walker who was attacked in a Leicestershire park.
Bhim Kohli was found lying on the ground in Franklin Park in Braunstone Town, near Leicester, on 1 September last year and died the next evening of a spinal cord injury.
The grandfather, who was attacked just yards from his home, suffered a broken neck and rib fractures consistent with “something heavy striking the rib cage”, the trial heard.
Image: Bhim Kohli
The boy, who was 14 at the time of the attack, and the girl, who was 12, cannot be named because of their ages.
During a six-week trial at Leicester Crown Court, jurors heard that Mr Kohli was racially abused before the incident.
The girl had also taken a photograph of Mr Kohli in Franklin Park a week before, the court heard.
The jury deliberated for almost seven hours before reaching unanimous verdicts on the pair, who will be sentenced next month.
Mr Kohli was shoved to the ground and slapped in the face with a shoe by a boy wearing a balaclava, the trial heard.
Image: Police at the scene in Franklin Park last September. Pic: PA
A police report into the incident included a statement from a witness who described “seeing the boy forcefully pushing the old man on to his back”.
The jury heard the witness described the old man as “ending up on the floor screaming”.
A statement from PC Rachelle Pereira said: “Mr Kohli was repeatedly screaming out in pain, shouting out ‘My neck’.”
Her statement said the witness told the police officer she saw a young white boy wearing a black balaclava “shove the old man to the floor and sprint”.
The boy, who denied inflicting the fatal injuries, told a friend he would go “on the run” to Hinckley, in Leicestershire, the day after the attack but was arrested by police minutes later while hiding in a bush, the court heard.
In a letter written two months after the attack, the court heard the boy said “I did it and I accept I’m doing time” and “I kinda just needed anger etc releasing”.
Mr Justice Turner remanded the boy in custody and granted the girl bail, but told her his decision “should not be taken as any indication as to the sentence when the time comes”.
The boy had also been charged with murder, but was found not guilty by the jury on that count.
The defendants, who sat in the dock for the first time since their trial began, appeared upset as the verdicts were given.
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Donald Trump’s tariffs could disrupt the supply of medicines into the UK, the health secretary has warned.
Wes Streeting said the government was “constantly watching and acting on this situation” after the US president refused to back down from the punitive policy, despite turmoil in the markets.
His actions have sparked fears of a global trade war, with the UK’s benchmark stock market index, the FTSE 100, only just witnessing a slight rise this morning after three days of steep losses.
While the reciprocal tariffs have not yet included pharmaceutical products, there are concerns this could change in the near future.
Speaking to Wilfred Frost on Sky News Breakfast, the health secretary said that even before the US president’s tariff agenda – which has seen him impose a 10% baseline tax on imports from all nations – there had been “issues with medicines production and supply internationally”.
“We are constantly watching and acting on this situation to try and get medicines into the country, to make sure we’ve got availability, to show some flexibility in terms of how medicines are dispensed, to deal with shortages,” he said.
“But whether it’s medicines, whether it’s parts for manufacturing, whether it’s… the ability of businesses in this country to turn a profit, this is an extremely turbulent situation.”
Mr Streeting, who was speaking following the announcement that the government has recruited more than 1,500 new GPs since 1 October, said the steps taken by Mr Trump were “unprecedented in terms of global trade”.
“As ever in terms of medicines, there’s a number of factors at play,” he said.
“There have been challenges in terms of manufacturing, challenges in terms of distribution, and if we start to see tariffs kicking in, that’s another layer of challenge, but we watch this situation extremely closely.
“We work on a daily basis to make sure that we have the medicine supply this country needs.”
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1:42
Trump’s tariffs: What you need to know
Sir Keir Starmer had been seeking to secure an exemption for the UK from Mr Trump’s punitive tariffs.
But last week, the UK was hit with both the 10% baseline tariff on all imports and the 25% tariff on all cars imported to the US.
The latter tariff could prove particularly damaging for the UK, owing to the fact that the US is the car sector’s largest single market by country – accounting for £6.4bn worth of car exports in 2023.
While the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars remains in place, regulations around manufacturing targets on electric cars and vans will be altered to help firms during the transition.
Luxury supercar firms such as Aston Martin and McLaren will still be allowed to keep producing petrol cars beyond the 2030 date, while petrol and diesel vans will also be allowed to be sold until 2035, along with hybrids and plug-in hybrid cars.
Prince Harry has arrived at court for the start of a two-day hearing about his security arrangements.
The Duke of Sussex is appealing a ruling dismissing his challenge to the level of police protection he receives in the UK, and his case will be heard in front of three judges across Tuesday and Wednesday.
The prince’s dispute goes all the way back to 2020, and is one of several high-profile legal battles he has brought to the High Court in recent years.
So what is the case about, what has happened in the courts so far and what’s happening now?
What is the dispute over?
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1:24
Harry’s legal battle over security
Harry received full, publicly funded security protection until he stepped back from royal duties and moved to America with wife Meghanin March 2020.
Once he moved away, the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) – which has delegated responsibility from the Home Office for royal security – decided he would not receive the same level of protection.
But Harry has argued that his private protection team in the US does not have access to UK intelligence information which is needed to keep his wife and children safe.
He therefore wants access to his previous level of security when in the country, but wants to fund the security himself, rather than ask taxpayers to foot the bill after he stepped down as a senior member of the Royal Family.
Image: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex in Canada in February. Pic: Aaron Chown/PA Wire
The duke’s legal representative said in a previous statement: “The UK will always be Prince Harry’s home and a country he wants his wife and children to be safe in.
“With the lack of police protection comes too great a personal risk.
“In the absence of such protection, Prince Harry and his family are unable to return to his home.”
The legal representative added: “Prince Harry inherited a security risk at birth, for life. He remains sixth in line to the throne, served two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan, and in recent years his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats.
“While his role within the institution has changed, his profile as a member of the Royal Family has not. Nor has the threat to him and his family.”
What’s happened in court so far?
He filed a claim for a judicial review of the Home Office’s decision shortly after it was made, with the first hearing in the High Court coming in February 2022.
At the start of that hearing, Robert Palmer QC, for the Home Office, told the court the duke’s offer of private funding was “irrelevant”, despite his safety concerns.
In written submissions, he said: “Personal protective security by the police is not available on a privately financed basis, and Ravec does not make decisions on the provision of such security on the basis that any financial contribution could be sought or obtained to pay for it.”
He added Ravec had attributed to the duke “a form of exceptional status” where he is considered for personal protective security by the police, “with the precise arrangements being dependent on the reason for his presence in Great Britain and by reference to the functions he carries out when present”.
The barrister added: “A case-by-case approach rationally and appropriately allows Ravec to implement a responsive approach to reflect the applicable circumstances.”
The case didn’t conclude until 28 February 2024, when retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane ruled against Prince Harry.
Image: The Duke leaving a service at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in May 2024. Pic: AP
He ruled the decision to change his security status was not unlawful or “irrational”, and that there had been no “procedural unfairness”.
The judge added: “Even if such procedural unfairness occurred, the court would in any event be prevented from granting the claimant [Prince Harry] relief.
“This is because, leaving aside any such unlawfulness, it is highly likely that the outcome for the claimant would not have been substantially different.”
Following the ruling, a Home Office spokesperson said: “We are pleased that the court has found in favour of the government’s position in this case and we are carefully considering our next steps.
After the ruling, a legal spokesperson for Harry said he intended to appeal, adding: “The duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec’s own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec’s own written policy.
“In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to the Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis.
“The duke’s case is that the so-called ‘bespoke process’ that applies to him is no substitute for that risk analysis.
“The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.”
Prince eventually gets green light to appeal against High Court ruling