Private security firm volunteered to patrol the village where Nicola Bulley went missing

Feb 2023

Spencer Sutcliffe Security carried out daily and nightly patrols to stop amateur sleuths trying to solve the case of Nicola Bulley, a mother of two, while making TikTok videos.

Nicola Bulley went missing along the River Wyre on the morning of Friday, 27 January 2023 and her body was eventually found in the river on February 19. During the period in-between, many amateur sleuths came to St Michael’s on the Wyre making videos while trying to solve the case. As residents stressed over the missing woman, they were also on edge due to all the people suddenly turning up in the area, trampling through their gardens, going through their shed.

Lancaster Police were forced to put in place a dispersal order for 48 hours after a group of men were reported to be travelling from Liverpool to search an abandoned house near where Ms Bulley was feared to have fallen into the river as this was the working theory of the police at the time.

Two people posted a TikTok video of themselves searching woodland close to the River Wyre, just days after senior police officers urged people to stay away from the area. Michael Vincent, local council chief, said: “It’s almost as though social media idiocy and reality have become blurred.

“We’ve had these weirdos, these ghouls, trying people’s door handles, peering through their windows. There has to be an element of decency. We can’t allow social media to be a place where there is no morality.”

As such, Spencer Sutcliffe Security, a private security firm based in Lancaster, offered their services for free to ‘give the residents a bit of reassurance that there’s people out there looking after them, and work alongside the police’, as the owner of the company stated. ‘We are not trying to replace them [the police], but unfortunately, the police are understaffed and underfunded’.

Spencer said, ‘It’s causing endless stress, I’m sure, to Nicola’s family, and it’s causing the residents of St Michael’s to be very on edge. We understand people have the right to freedom of movement but people also have the right to a private life, and to not have a breach to their peace, and unfortunately that’s what they’re having at the minute.’

While residents in St Michael’s have welcomed the involvement of the firm, police search concluded on 19 February when missing mother Nicola Bulley was finally found around a mile away from where she was last seen on the river in St Michael’s on Wyre in Lancashire. The inquest into Ms Bulley’s death is likely to take place in June, when a coroner will seek to determine how she died.