This month marks the second anniversary of the disappearance of Nicola Bulley – the mum of two who went missing in Lancashire, sparking a media and online frenzy. Neighbours, day-trippers, police, independent investigators and an army of YouTubers, TikTokers and amateur detectives descended onto the scene. And… so did I. Not to try and crack the case, but to try and understand what was motivating those people who went along. What drew these people to the scene of a disappearance?
You may recall that I made a short documentary about it – which you can listen to here. I also wrote it up as an article, but for various boring reasons (it was a Friday afternoon, it needed too much trimming, they went with something else), it never saw the light of day. I also wrote it for a chapter of a book that a publisher asked me to pitch, before they ghosted me and I never heard from them again.
And so… rather than it gathering dust in my documents folder, I thought I’d share it with you. If you heard my radio documentary, some of that is in here, but there is a lot of extra detail that I haven’t shared before. Over time, I was able to make more observations, and include some of the conclusions of an inquiry. I also write for the first time about Peter Faulding, the private investigator who inserted himself into the case, and who I spoke to on my radio show the night before he travelled to the scene.
This is a sensitive story, with a grieving family at its heart. So much true crime erases the stories of the victims and their families. I helped the producers of a BBC documentary a few months ago, which includes Nicola’s husband and family, and you can watch that by clicking here. But what follows isn’t a true crime story. It’s a story about complex humans. It’s a story about the circus that surrounded the case, and the often complicated and surprising reasons that a unique group of people found themselves on a riverbank in Lancashire.
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The path I’m walking along the river is worn to a sludge. It’s twelve days since 45-year-old Nicola Bulley went missing from this spot, in the small village of St. Michael’s on Wyre. Twelve days of police officers, search teams, journalists, camera crews, friends, family, curious locals, and amateur detectives have taken their toll on the ground.
A handful of police officers linger at the entrance of a small red van with large block writing on the side: Incident Response. It is that – Lancashire Police’s response to this incident, under pressure from an army of online detectives – that will see them referred to the police watchdog and criticised by the Home Secretary.
TikTok sleuths and YouTube investigators have clocked up millions of views for videos harassing Nicola’s friends and family and raiding villagers’ gardens and homes. It has become a curious subplot of a story that has caught the country’s attention.
A search boat ploughs up and down the river as I approach another journalist and ask if he’s seen any of the notorious vigilantes. He points me to a group of young women with gloves, bobble hats and Costa coffee mugs. “You want to speak to those people,” he says, “the grief junkies.”
Sam tells me her name, but the others don’t want to. I ask them why they are here. They tell me it just doesn’t stack up. They needed to see it for themselves. They don’t agree that they are rubbernecking or enjoying the spectacle. They are all mothers, they just needed to see if they could help.
It is hard to fathom why this case has garnered so much attention. According to the charity Missing People, 353,000 people go missing every year. Other families are questioning why their loved ones haven’t been afforded rolling coverage and extensive police resources. The answer to that is complex, but one element seems simple. A white woman with two young children, a husband, and a family dog, vanishing from a sleepy village while out for a walk. Nicola fits one of the true crime genre’s favourite characters.
“I’ll be honest,” says Sam, “I do watch a lot of documentaries myself, it’s so hard to not become invested in it when it’s so close to home. I have kids myself, the same age as Nicola’s, and it just… it just breaks my heart.”
I ask if that makes them grief junkies. I use those words. They feel heavy and loaded as they fall from my mouth. “What are all those people doing?” one of the women says as she points to the bank of news crews and cameras by the river, “Are you not the real grief junkies?” She points to me.
I meet another man, his work overalls soiled with grit. I ask him why he is here. He pulls a picture up on his phone. It’s a sun-kissed family on holiday. “She died,” he jabs his finger at the screen, working his way through the group, “he died, she died, and she died.” His daughter had been having a house party. Something went wrong. There was a fire. He lost four grandchildren.
“Do you know where the family are? I came because I wanted to see them,” he explains as he stumbles away through the mud, “I’ve been through it myself.”
The journalist’s words rattle around my head. Grief junkie. It feels like a cruel way to describe such a human response.
‘We are doing a search, well I am anyway, in search of this lady, I want some answers. There are a lot of conspiracy theories going around on the internet so I’m just trying to find some answers guys.’
Danny grips his phone in front of him, slowly zooming his camera in on the passing search boat. Over the last week, Danny Duffy has become one of the most prolific amateur sleuths on the Nicola Bulley case. His videos rummaging through the woodland, searching nearby buildings, and sharing his theories have had hundreds of thousands of views. He has 200,000 YouTube subscribers and 100,000 followers on TikTok. He has been one of the most controversial characters. For all his detractors, he has cheerleaders, too. The people in the comments egg him on and offer their own theories. Danny’s account has become one of the main sources feeding an industry of armchair investigators.
“Everyone, say hello to… what’s your name?” I say my name and wave awkwardly at the camera, wary of becoming part of the problem. It doesn’t take long for Danny to start throwing around accusations. They tumble out of him. He doesn’t believe the police line that Nicola is in the water. He strides off the main path and into the weeds… and so do his theories: a conspiracy, a cover-up, an inside job.
I follow Danny for a while as he rummages through shrubs and scans the river. He seems, I tell him, to be enjoying the thrill of the chase. “I wouldn’t say I’m enjoying it, but it would be nice to discover this lady, and be the guy known as the hero… and that’s what I’ve been trying to do. Like… a real-life superhero.”
Danny says he’s never felt like he’s been taken seriously. “I feel like I’m a number. A sheep. A lost sheep. I want to be recognised if I’m honest. I want to be the hero.”
And now he is being recognised. He has found his audience, and the more extreme the content, the more they watch. His videos are getting hundreds of thousands of views, and tens of thousands of comments and likes. Each moreish hit of dopamine feeding the thirstiest parts of his brain. What chance does he have, I wonder to myself, in a tussle between human and machine?
Surely, there is a path to notoriety that doesn’t detour through innocent people’s gardens, I ask. He doesn’t see it that way. He believes his videos are more of a help than a hindrance. And not just to the search for Nicola. “In 2011, my sister passed away… still to this day it’s an open verdict.” Danny says he never got the answers he deserved.
“When stuff like this comes up,” he says of Nicola’s case, “it pushes me to try and get some answers, because I’m still looking for them for myself.”
I push him one more time. This is irresponsible, some people have felt harassed, and both the police and Nicola’s family have called out speculation like his. Danny says he understands… but is unmoved. “I want to bring some closure,” he says… the closure he feels he was never afforded himself.
There is a fine line between the amateur detectives being a nuisance, and them causing real harm. A few days after we speak, Danny finds the line.
‘Don’t ever go to put your hand on me again, do you hear? You’re lucky I didn’t sweep you off your feet. You’re live on TikTok mate…’
There was a confrontation with a local, some people were referred to as ‘suspects’, and Danny’s TikTok account was banned. TikTok confirmed they had removed the account for multiple violations. They said: ‘we do not tolerate bullying or harassment on our platform, and we remove content that violates our policies… we’ll continue to take action where necessary.’
“It wasn’t me saying the things, it was the other people.” Danny tells me when I call him the next morning, “when I have posted the video, people have been saying ‘this guy is a suspect’ and I thought, you know what, I’ll just have a bit of a laugh.
I explain how dangerous that can be, that it wouldn’t be a laugh to the person whose life it could ruin. He says he understands, but is unrepentant, and still believes he is helping. I ask if he’s going to carry on with this search. “No. I just don’t want to anger any more people in the village or anything like that, I just don’t think it would be fair.” I hear his infant daughter sob a gargled cry in the background. “Walking around with torches at night, people are just getting scared… don’t get me wrong, I’d still love to search for the woman and stuff like that, but it’s best to just leave it to the professionals.”
Later that day, Danny did return to the scene. He was arrested for a public order offence after police issued a dispersal order. He was fined a £90 fixed penalty.
Danny filmed his arrest and posted it to YouTube. “Hi guys, I’m being arrested on a public order offence. They’ve had an allegation. As you all know I was in search to find the missing woman Nicola, but this is what this country’s turning into. No freedom of speech.”