Peter Faulding has taken to social media to clear his name after he says that he and his team were portrayed ‘unfairly’ in the BBC documentary that was released on Thursday (3 October).
The Search for Nicola Bulley hit screens across the UK this week, in which Faulding was accused of creating a ‘false alarm’ to family and loved ones as he claimed that the missing mother wasn’t in the river.
Bulley disappeared back in January 2023 after dropping her kids off at school and taking her dog for a walk along a Lancashire river.
The last text that she sent out was also revealed during an inquest last year, as she texted fellow mum Lucy about arranging a playdate with her daughter, to which she replied: “I said my daughter would love to come and play.”
At 8:59am on 27 January, 2023, Nicola responded, confirming a time with a smiley face, while Lucy also revealed that a few of the mums had plans to meet for drinks later that day.
It was confirmed following a post-mortem though, that she had accidentally fallen into the water, drowned and died before being found weeks after she disappearance.
But three days into the search, Faulding suspected the involvement of a third party, stating to reporters at the time: “I said that if Nicola is here, I’d find her, if Nicola was in that river, I would have found her, I can guarantee you that, and she’s not there.”
Three weeks later, Bulley’s body was recovered from the river, though in a YouTube video posted later on, Faulding claimed he found evidence that her body was in the river by using sonar after just six minutes into the search, before police ignored him.
Faulding claims that he found the body after just six minutes, contrary to his earlier comments (PA)
On Friday morning (4 October), he took to X and posted a link to a statement, writing: “It is with deep regret that I have had to release these documents and images to defend myself and my team’s professional reputation.”
He posted the statement on the Specialist Group International Underwater Search Team website, which said: “The BBC Documentary ‘Finding Nicola’ which aired on Thursday, October 3 has once again portrayed myself and my team unfairly and I want to set the record straight.
“It is with regret that I feel the need to release this information to the public, evidence that my search for Nicola Bulley was sadly successful, but was not fully investigated or disclosed to the public.”
He continued: “My statement that ‘if Nicola was there, I would have found her’ comes from nearly three decades of experience.
“Since 1999, I have pioneered the use of side scan sonar for forensic and underwater search in the UK. I make no apologies for being confident in my and my team’s skills.
“I stand by my previous statement outlining our version of events that I located the body of Nicola Bulley at 10.34 on 7th February within 6 minutes.”
Bulley’s disappearance made national headlines last year (Family Handout/PA Wire)
Faulding added that it was ‘never our intention’ to cause any issues with the investigation or the family, as he stands by the belief that his findings have ‘not been thoroughly investigated’, claiming that police never requested his sonar data.
“Without this very important data, no information to support the images would be available and no conclusions would be possible to make,” he claims. “Yet, unnamed experts made conclusions in the College of Policing Report based on basic PDF images alone.”
The diving specialist also released images that are allegedly of these sonar scans, showing the shape of a body in the river in the ‘fetal position’ on 7 February, almost two weeks before her body was discovered on 19 February.
A review into the handling of the search in November 2023 suggested that he ’caused unwarranted distress and false alarm’ to the family’, while the report suggested that he caused ‘public confusion’ over her appearance.
The BBC declined to comment when approached by LADbible.
Nicola’s case made headlines up and down the UK when she disappeared on 27 January 2023 while walking her dog near in the village of St Michael’s on Wyre.
The case would spark a frenzied response online from amateur sleuths and armchair psychics, with Paul and the Bulley family becoming the target of baseless conspiracy theories on social media.
Nicola’s body was recovered from the River Wyre on 19 February, with her cause of death being ruled as an accidental drowning.
Nicola Bulley disappeared while walking her dog in January 2023 (PA)
Over a year and a half later, and the family have since been involved in the creation of upcoming BBC documentary The Search For Nicola Bulley, which will air next month.
The decision to appear in the programme wasn’t an easy one for the family, who have since issued a heartbreaking statement regarding their reasons for participating.
Explaining why their involvement ‘wasn’t an easy decision’ the family told Rogan Productions they wanted to make sure Nicola was given the ‘legacy that she deserves’.
“Nikki’s face and name quickly became very recognisable, but there is so much to share about Nikki the person,” the statement read.
“Our sole aim is to provide the definitive record on Nikki to ensure she has the legacy that she deserves.
“It was emotionally draining reliving some of our experiences, but we wanted to do this for Nikki.”
Paul has also revealed why he specifically decided to take part in filming, telling director Rachel Lob-levyt that it had been a ‘nerve-wrecking decision’ for him.
Nicola’s family would later become the target of baseless conspiracy theories (Rogan Productions)
“We had a viewing with the family. It was difficult – obviously emotional for them. They feel the documentary really honours their experience, and honours Nikki. At the time she went missing, Paul was subject to a really difficult level of scrutiny,” she explained to the BBC.
Lob-levyt continued: “The idea of putting himself back in the public eye is nerve-racking but ultimately, he thought it the right thing to do. The social media sleuths felt entitled to say whatever they wanted.
“In the past we’d have talked about these things in the pub, whereas now people broadcast it online and everything is accelerated. Opinion takes on similar weight to verified information.”
A review of the investigation by the independent College of Policing was later conducted, with the report urging police forces to ‘recognise the impact social media now has’ when it comes to missing persons cases.
The Search For Nicola Bulley premieres on 3 October on BBC One.
The Brit was last seen with her dog Willow along the River Wyre in Lancashire on 27 January 2023, and the media attention on her case put her in the eye of public interest.
Emergency authorities and police searched relentlessly for the missing mother-of-two until her body was tragically discovered weeks down the line.
It was deduced that she had accidentally fallen into the water and died.
It was a traumatising case for her family and loved ones in particular, who have recently shared how they really feel about her case in a new BBC documentary, which was released last night (3 October).
Nicola Bulley’s disappearance made national headlines last year (Family Handout/PA Wire)
A number of conspiracy theories were thrown at the Bulley family as social media users made several baseless claims about her disappearance, which her partner Paul Ansell said was ’emotionally draining’ to speak about.
Dr. James Adeley, senior coroner for Lancashire, revealed that Nicola was ‘alive when entering the water’ during the inquest last year too, with the new documentary covering every last detail of the case – including a timeline of what happened before she went missing, as well as what her final words were.
The court heard from Home Office pathologist Alison Armour on the first day of the inquest, as Armour pieced together Nicola’s last day and focused on a text message exchange between her and her friend Lucy, as they were planning a playdate for their daughters.
The last text Nicola received and sent were recorded, as it was found that the night before her disappearance, she texted Lucy, who replied the next morning after seeing the text.
Responding at 8:13am, Lucy later said to the court: “I said my daughter would love to come and play.”
A documentary on Bulley’s disappearance was released on BBC last night, which saw her family finally have their say on the tragic case (Rogan Productions)
Then, at 8:59am, Nicola responded, confirming a time with a smiley face. The mums also had plans to meet the next day, as Lucy revealed: “We were going to be meeting up, a group of mums, on the Saturday night for a few drinks.”
Armour, who also conducted Nicola’s post-mortem, confirmed during the inquest last year that water was found in her lungs and the cause of death was drowning.
The coroner prompted Armour to summarise what she found, stating: “I conclude the cause of death as drowning. The lungs themselves showed classical features we see in drownings. In my opinion Nicola Bulley was alive when she entered the water.”
She also revealed that water in the lungs indicated an ‘active process’ called swallowing, which was a sign that Bulley was alive when entering the river, while noting that there were no diseases or brain bleeds detecte. There was also no traces of harmful medication detected, as well as a low level of alcohol.
The Search for Nicola Bulley is available to stream now on BBC iPlayer.
In 2010, Brown killed his wife on Halloween night as his two children hid in the playroom.
Brown then took the 46-year-old’s body and put her in a makeshift coffin in a park in Windsor.
The horrifying case has now been documented in ITV’s The British Airways Killer.
After killing his wife on Halloween, Brown called police the next morning to report a domestic issue.
When he handed himself in, he refused to help investigators with their missing persons investigation, despite having bludgeoned Simpson to death.
Eventually he confessed that he had killed her and told the police where to find the body.
Brown avoided a murder conviction though, and pleaded guilty to manslaughter with diminished responsibility, citing that he suffered from a stress-related ‘adjustment disorder’.
A jury acquitted Brown of murder in 2011, but he was still jailed after he admitted manslaughter through grounds of diminished responsibility.
He was sentenced to 24 years for manslaughter, with another two years for obstructing a coroner in the execution of their duty.
The former airline captain was then set to be released halfway through his 26-year sentence in November last year, if it weren’t for Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, who blocked his automatic release and referred his case to the Parole Board.
This comes after Brown brought a High Court challenge against a Government move to block his automatic release from prison earlier this month.
His lawyers argued at a hearing in London that Justice Secretary Alex Chalk’s referral was unlawful, while the Government says his legal action should be dismissed.
Although he admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, a psychiatric report said Brown suffered from an ‘adjustment disorder’.
Aged 47 at sentencing, Brown believed he was ‘stitched up’ by a prenuptial agreement and was affected by stress linked to his divorce, a judge was told.
PA/Police Handout
Brown’s lawyers argue that the Parole Board referral was ‘an obvious attempt to seek to reverse engineer justification for a decision that was in reality prompted and obtained through conscious or unconscious political bias’.
His legal team said the risk posed by Brown had not increased and that he had been ‘subjected to a high-profile campaign through the media and with politicians that has sought to block his release’.
However, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) has rejected his allegations, as lawyers for the department say Mr Chalk believed Brown ‘would pose a significant risk of serious harm to the public if released on licence’, adding that the offender had ‘persistently refused to engage in the rehabilitative elements of his sentence’.
Rhian Lee was one of Leigh Ann Sabine’s best friends prior to her death in October 2015 following a cancer diagnosis.
Sabine lived in the Welsh village of Bedday, Pontypridd, with the late nurse often telling her neighbours that she had an old medical skeleton in her apartment, as a piece of memorabilia to do with her time working in the healthcare sector.
After dying aged 74, her belongings were dumped in a communal garden nearby, and two of her friends decided that they’d play a practical joke with the famous medical skeleton that they often heard about.
It was the former’s idea to retrieve it, but the ‘prank’ ended up being more serious than anything they could have imagined.
Speaking to the Sun, Lee revealed the discovery she made on 24 November, 2015: “I had over six months of counselling to help get over the trauma of the discovery,” she began.
“That morning I went over to my friend Michelle’s [James] for a cuppa and we thought, for a laugh, we’d play a prank.
“We knew about the medical skeleton wrapped up like a big package under the potting table in the garden and so we thought we’d bring it in, put it on the settee and give a knock to the neighbour to come down to see, as a joke,” she admitted.
But as they cut through several layers of plastic sheeting to get to the skeleton, James froze as she thought they had found a dead body.
“I said, ‘Michelle, don’t be so stupid. She told us it has been out here for years. The smell and wetness is probably stagnant water’,” Lee said.
Lee couldn’t believe what she found in her friend’s garden. (Sky)
However, James went on and called the police, with Police Community Officer Gareth Bishop believing there had been a mistake.
After a closer inspection, he revealed that James’ initial thoughts were right, it was a dead body and many questions began to flood in.
He later explained: “The garden was shared by four flats.
“The entrance to it was through the communal hall. There was a gate on the side but it was padlocked.
“We spoke to the occupants of the flats but no one had any recollection of seeing that body in the garden. Potentially there was a killer on the loose,” he suggested.
But the truth was much darker than that.
It turns out that Leigh Sabine was a murderer who had killed and hidden her husband’s body at home for 18 years, having also abandoned her five children.
The chilling story is told in The Body Next Door, a three-part documentary series that delves into one of the most unbelievable and bizarre true crime stories in recent times.
It took three weeks for DNA tests to prove that the body, still in blue Marks and Spencer pyjamas – belonged to Leigh’s husband John, who was last seen alive in 1997.
Sabine was hiding her dead husband from the public. (Juliet Eden)
This was just the beginning though, as the police delved deeper into Sabine’s life, uncovering more than they expected, as it was discovered that the couple lived in Australia together, having five children, before abandoning them at an orphanage in New Zealand.
Police were struggling to find an exact date and cause of death, until a former friend came forward, revealing a phone call from 1997 between the two where Sabine said she ‘battered’ her husband with a stone frog because he was ‘getting on her nerves’.
Authorities would recover the ornament, which had traces of John’s blood and Sabine’s fingerprints on it, and came to the conclusion that she had become resentful to John over regrets about leaving their children, killing him in his sleep.
As for the responses of their kids, daughter Jane Sabine would later go on record saying: “I have no doubt my mother was capable of murder.”
