Nicola Bulley latest updates: Fresh lead as police told of ‘red van’ seen on day dogwalker went missing

Police may be searching for a “tatty red van” after a local resident noticed the vehicle parked in the village on the morning Nicola Bulley went missing.

The 55-year-old witness, who has not been named, told The Times that they saw “tatty red van in Hall Lane outside a barn”.

“I didn’t think anything at the time, but when I saw Nicola had gone missing, I called 101 and spoke to an operator.”

The witness said they contacted the police again and said the van could have been a Renault, adding it was the “sort of van you can live in”.

A second witness told The Sun that they had reported seeing a red van which “looked suspicious” at around 9.40am on the day Ms Bulley disappeared.

The man called the police three days after the mum-of-two went missing and was asked if he had any dashcam footage of the vehicle.

Lucy Creaney said she still believes her husband, Finn Creaney, who went missing nearly a year ago after he started a solo hike in Loch Naver, Sutherland, is still alive.

Mr Creaney was dropped off by a family member at a caravan park near the start of where he hoped to embark on a solo hike on 25 March.

Two weeks after the mum-of-two disappeared, a friend said she will keep searching until she can bring Nicola Bulley’s children good news.

Emma White told BBC Breakfast: “We just want to bring them that news that we’ve found mummy.”

From the last place she was sighted at approximately 9.10am, and where her phone was seen at 9.20am, there is a baffling 10-minute window where Ms Bulley could have walked or driven to the surrounding areas.

We have mapped out the rough radius where the 45-year-old could have walked and driven to in those 10-minutes.

Friends of missing woman Nicola Bulley hold missing person appeal posters along the main road in the village in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire.

Specifically, Lancashire Police have a 10-minute window in which they cannot account for Ms Bulley’s movements.

At approximately 9.10am, a witness – somebody who knows Ms Bulley – saw her on the upper field walking her dog.

Police know that at 9.20am, her phone was on the bench it was later discovered on. The phone was still connected to a teams call she logged on to at 9.01am.

We map out the rough radius where the 45-year-old could have walked and driven in those unaccounted minutes:

A man whose brother went missing on the same stretch of river where Nicola Bulley disappeared but exactly 45 years earlier has shared his sympathies with her family.

Don Jones said “we know just what they must be going through,” as his brother Roger also vanished on January 27 close to the River Wyre near Preston in 1978.

Mother-of-two Ms Bulley has not been seen since around 9.15am on the same day in 2023 and emergency services have still not located any trace of her in the water.

A friend of Nicola Bulley said a campaign highlighting her disappearance a fortnight ago will be looking to “jog” people’s memory about the day the Lancashire woman went missing.

Emma White, speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, said: “It is two weeks today.

“The local community are coming out to raise that profile, we’re trying to jog anybody’s memory. Dashcam footage of Garstang Road, which is just outside of the village of St Michael’s on Wyre, just by the bridge that you go over.

“It is quite a key part of the village so people would remember going over it.

“Did they see anything? We’re out with banners, we’ve got placards of Nikki’s face, we’ve got a moving eight-foot LED board with her face on it with the message ‘Bring Nikki home’.

“We just need Nikki home for her two beautiful little girls who need their mummy.”

It is now 14 days since mum of two, Nicola Bulley was last seen – leaving her family, friends and the police baffled by her disappearance. Let’s be clear: people don’t just vanish, there is always an explanation.

So, what could have happened to her?

Former detective and TV investigator Mark Williams-Thomas writes:

An underwater search expert said the case of missing mother-of-two Nicola Bulley is a “complete mystery”, after his team could not find her.

Peter Faulding, who was called in by the family to help find Ms Bulley, met her partner Paul Ansell on Wednesday and told him she had still not been found.