Nicola Bulley’s partner Paul Ansell reveals heartbreak as new CCTV still released
The partner of missing Nicola Bulley has told Sky News she “has to be found safe and well” because “I can’t put those girls to bed again with no answers”, as police today released new CCTV of her on the day she disappeared.
The mother-of-two went missing in Lancashire on the morning of Friday 27 January while walking her dog.
Officers’ “main working hypothesis” is that the 45-year-old fell into the River Wyre near to the village of St Michael’s on Wyre.
But her family and friends have claimed there is “no evidence whatsoever” behind this.
Nicola Bulley
In a separate statement, released through Lancashire Police on the 10th day since she was last seen, Ms Bulley’s partner, Paul Ansell, said the girls “miss their mummy desperately” and “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,” he said.
In an additional voice note, sent to Sky News, he said: “We have to find her safe and well. I can’t put those girls to bed again tonight with no answers.”
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Voicenote from Nicola Bulley’s partner
Read more:
Independent search team joins hunt for Nicola Bulley
First images released of dog walker on day she vanished
It comes as police released new images from Ms Bulley’s doorbell camera showing her on the day she disappeared.
The pictures show Ms Bulley wearing a long dark coat – believed to be black – and with her dog. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail.
Ms Bulley was last seen walking her dog a short while later on a footpath near the waterways of St Michael’s on Wyre village.
Lancashire Constabulary said it had carried out searches along the river “all the way to the sea” using specialist search teams, sonar, search dogs, drones and helicopters.
The force said it had also searched the derelict house on the other side of the river as well as any empty caravans in the vicinity.
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Retracing Nicola Bulley’s journey
Officers will now be sending letters to drivers who they believe were travelling down Garstang Road, near to the river, on the morning Ms Bulley disappeared in the hope of obtaining new dashcam footage.
“We can say with confidence that by reviewing CCTV, Nicola has not left the field during the key times via Rowanwater, either through the site itself or via the piece of land at the side,” a force spokesperson said.
“Our inquiries now focus on the river path which leads from the fields back to Garstang Road – for that we need drivers and cyclists who travelled that way on the morning of 27 January to make contact.
“If you receive one of these letters and have dashcam footage, we would urge you to make contact so that a member of the enquiry team can make contact and review your footage to establish whether it assists.”
Specialist team joins the search
On Monday, a dive team from Specialist Group International (SGI) joined the search after the company originally offered its help on social media.
The company’s £55,000 side-scan sonar has a high frequency of 1,800 kilohertz. “We’ve got a very high hit rate,” SGI’s chief executive, Peter Faulding, said.
Police also have a side-scan sonar but “our sonar is probably a bit more superior”, he said, adding: “I’m not sure what frequency they will be using.”
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Nicola Bulley’s family and friends have claimed there is ‘no evidence whatsoever’ Ms Bulley fell into the water.
On Monday night, he said his team had searched “three or four miles” of river but had not found anything.
“It’s a negative search, no signs of Nicola,” he said.
His team will look through another stretch of river “towards where Nicola went originally missing” on Tuesday.
Mr Faulding said it was a “particularly long stretch of river” for police to search “because they’re doubling up as a dive team as well”.
“It is a huge task for the police,” he said.
Mr Faudling said he had worked on hundreds of these cases, and we always, generally find people within the hour in lakes etc”.
“We’re just bringing an extra expertise.”
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Mr Ansell praised SGI for joining the search, adding: “We are really grateful to Peter and his team from SGI for coming up and helping support the work of Lancashire Police as they continue their investigation.
“If anyone has any information which could help find Nicola, I urge them to get in touch with the police and help us provide the answers we all so badly need.”
How will SGI help?
Mr Faulding said the SGI team are tasked by a police search adviser with looking in a specific stretch of the river.
He explained: “Once he says ‘I want this piece of river searched’ it will be down to me to actually search that piece of river with my team.
Peter Faulding (centre) CEO of private underwater search and recovery company Specialist Group International (SGI)
“So they won’t tell us how to do it, they will just say ‘this is a stretch of river what we need doing, and can you please do that and report back’.”
He said: “If there is a body in the river, our sonar will detect it.”
SGI carries out all the underwater search operations across the whole of the South East for the police, Mr Faulding said.
He said his sonar will probably start from the weir downwards “and identify any possible targets”. It can generally cover about 10 miles of river a day, he added.
Mr Faulding also cautioned: “Sometimes you can get deep pools of water where the sonar can’t quite get to and that’s where you have to put the diver in, but this river winds around and there’s deep pools, there’s shallow bits, so it’s a lot of work.”
“We will work a long day and continue until we’re finished,” he explained.
How did SGI get involved?
Mr Faulding said that SGI originally offered its services on Facebook.
“We just said we will assist if required, but they [the family] came straight back and then they went to the police and the police, via that, contacted us.
Workers from Specialist Group International assist in the search
“And so we’ve had very productive conversations. We work with the police all the time.”
Ms Bulley’s friend Emma White said SGI’s work will “give us answers” but hoped “they uncover nothing”.
She told BBC Breakfast: “Following the hypothesis of the police that Nicola was in the river, we need some evidence to back that up either way and I feel Peter and his amazing bit of kit… is going to come and sweep the river bed and give us answers.”
Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Ms White added: “We hope they uncover nothing, like the police have done for the last 10 days, and we hope Nicola is not in that river.”
Ms White, who has known the mother-of-two for 10 years, also told Radio 4’s Today programme how she “came across one of the interviews” with Mr Faulding.
She added: “They’ve got expertise, equipment and manpower and they search rivers in extreme detail, so the quest to bring Peter to St Michael’s began.”
Footage of the moment 10-year-old Sara Sharif’s alleged killers were detained after police boarded their plane back to the UK has been played in court.
As they are approached by officers, Sara‘s stepmother Beinash Batool is heard saying: “I think you’re looking for us.”
Batool, 30, Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, 42, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are accused of carrying out a campaign of abuse against her culminating in her death at her family home in Surrey on 8 August last year.
The defendants, along with five of Sara’s siblings, aged between one and 13, flew to Pakistan the following day.
Sara’s body was found by police in a bunkbed on 10 August after Sharif called police from Pakistan to say he had beaten her “too much” for being “naughty”.
A murder investigation was launched involving agencies including Interpol and the National Crime Agency to locate the defendants.
They returned to the UK on a flight from Dubai to Gatwick Airport on 13 September.
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‘I beat her up too much’
The clips of officers’ body-worn video shown to the jury on Friday captured the moment police boarded the plane and detained the defendants at 7.42pm, seven minutes after touchdown.
After Batool addresses the officers, Sharif, who had been sitting next to her, is asked to follow them.
The three were then taken off the plane and arrested.
Pic: Surrey Police
A post-mortem examination established Sara had sustained extensive and significant injuries over a sustained period prior to her death.
The jury heard on Friday how concerns were raised by Sara’s school about bruising on her body in June 2022 and March 2023.
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Several items seized from Sara’s home were also reviewed by the court, including a leather belt which had full DNA samples at both ends for Sara, Sharif, and Malik.
A cricket bat was also found to have Sara’s DNA profile on it, along with the DNA samples of Sharif and Malik.
Neither item had a DNA trace of Batool.
The court also reviewed the defendants’ bank accounts – both joint and separate.
All three defendants have pleaded not guilty to murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.
The trial continues.
Six teenagers have been arrested after a 13-year-old girl was found with multiple stab wounds on a roadside near Hull.
Police said she was found around 6.50am on the A63 in Hessle with “life-threatening injuries” including “lacerations to her neck, abdomen, chest and back”.
Four boys and two girls – aged between 14 and 17 – were quickly arrested in a nearby wooded area and are being questioned on suspicion of attempted murder.
Members of the public came to the girl’s aid before emergency services arrived, Humberside Police said.
Detective Superintendent Simon Vickers said they “believe the attackers knew the victim” and the circumstances are still being investigated.
“The girl remains in hospital in critical condition and her family are being supported by officers at this difficult time,” he added.
The boys arrested are aged 14, 15, 16 and 17, and the girls 14 and 15.
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Cordons are in place around a wooded area off Ferriby High Road while investigations continue.
Police said they would have an increased presence in the area over the weekend and have asked anyone with information or video to get in touch, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously.
UK
Ex-soldier Daniel Khalife tells court it was a ‘foolish idea’ to have someone with his ‘skillset’ in prison
A former soldier has told a jury his escape from Wandsworth prison to avoid being held with sex offenders and terrorists showed his “skillset”.
Daniel Khalife, 23, who was being held accused of passing secrets to Iran said he was “never a real spy” but planned a fake defection to the state following his arrest after watching American television show Homeland.
He said he wanted to be moved to a high-security unit because he was getting unwanted attention from the sex offenders on the vulnerable prisoners wing and feared a move to Belmarsh prison because, as a British soldier, terrorists wanted to kill him.
Khalife said he first wanted to “make a show” of escaping, acting suspiciously and covering himself in soot from a food delivery lorry on 21 August last year, while he was working in the prison kitchen.
He was spotted and reported to security but was “pretty shocked” when nothing happened so decided to take the “full measure,” he told the jury.
A makeshift sling. Pic: Met Police
Talking about his escape for the first time at his Woolwich Crown Court trial, Khalife told how he fashioned a makeshift sling from kitchen trousers and carabiners used by inmates to keep their possessions safe from rats.
He attached it to the Bidfood lorry on 1 September last year, to see if it would be spotted by officers at Wandsworth or other prisons on the delivery route.
“I put the two carabiners and the makeshift rope underneath the lorry,” he said.
“When I had made the decision to actually leave the prison I was going to do it properly so I tested the security not just in Wandsworth
“Strangely, over the coming days, I could see it but it wasn’t spotted in Wandsworth or any other prison.”
Then on the morning of 6 September, Khalife said he concealed himself underneath the lorry, resting his back on the sling as the lorry was searched.
“They did normal checks around with torches but they didn’t find me. After that, a governor came to the tunnel and said, ‘Have you searched the vehicle?’
“I was facing upwards. There was action around the lorry.”
Daniel Khalife joined the Army aged 16
He said that when the vehicle stopped he “came out underneath the lorry and stayed in the prone position” until the lorry moved off.
Khalife, who joined the Army aged 16 and took up a post with the Royal Signals, based in Beacons barracks, Staffordshire, said he made no attempt to leave the country and had no intention to “run away” from the charges he was facing.
He was arrested three days later on the footpath of the Grand Union Canal in Northolt, west London, after a nationwide manhunt.
Asked why he had not handed himself in after his escape, Khalife said: “I was finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was to have someone of my skillset in prison. What use was that to anyone?”
“I accept that I left the prison and didn’t have any permission to do so,” he said. “I accept absolutely that I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
Daniel Khalife
Inspired by Homeland
The court has heard Khalife initiated contact with Iranian intelligence officers after he was told he could not pass developed vetting because his mother was born in Iran.
Khalife told MI5 he wanted to be a “double agent” and he said in court he thought he would be “congratulated” but described his arrest as like a “punch in the face”.
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Wearing a blue checked shirt and chinos, he said police were “blinded at the prospect of a successful prosecution” but he did not think being in prison would be in “the public interest”.
“I didn’t do anything that harmed our national security. I wanted to put myself in a position where I could help my country,” he said.
“I believed I could continue my work actually located in the state – the state being Iran.”
Khalife said he took inspiration from watching Homeland, starring Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, in which Americans and terrorists go undercover, on Netflix.
“I had seen one of the characters in the programme had actually falsely defected to a particular country and utilised that position to further the national security interests of that character’s country,” he said.
“The country in question, Iran, thought it was real. She did it to further the interests of her own country.”
Khalife told jurors he is a “patriot”, adding: “I do love my country. All I wanted to do was help. I never wanted to do any harm, I never did do any harm.”
He added: “It is tragic it has come to this and I would do anything to go back to my career.”
Khalife, from Kingston, southwest London, denies a charge of committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state under the Official Secrets Act between 1 May 2019 and 6 January 2022.
He has also pleaded not guilty to a charge under the Terrorism Act of eliciting information about Armed Forces personnel on 2 August 2021, perpetrating a bomb hoax on or before 2 January 2023 and escaping from prison on 6 September last year.
The trial continues.
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