Nicola Bulley’s partner has opened up about being ‘psychoanalysed’ by strangers after the mother-of-two’s disappearance caught the attention of TikTok ghouls.
Paul Ansell said the constant questioning of how he looked and behaved during the search for his missing partner of 12 years was ‘a horrible thing to experience’.
Ms Bulley vanished on January 27 in 2023 while walking her dog Willow along the River Wyre in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire, shortly after dropping her daughters off at school.
Her disappearance sparked intense speculation online and became one of the most high-profile modern missing person searches.
Mr Ansell became the centre of a barrage of unbased online conspiracies, which he this week described as ‘very intrusive’.
Speaking at a lecture at the London School of Economics on Monday, he said he ‘became a subject with the media in the sense of, “where’s the partner? Why’s he not talking?” sort of thing’.
‘I got out of the car, and I don’t think I knew what I was doing, really. I got out of the car, then I got collared by Sky, and the next minute, I was doing this interview,’ he said in comments reported by The Mirror.
‘But then of course you’re, you know, psychoanalysed, analysed. Your eyes aren’t right, you’re smirking. It wasn’t the papers or the news. It was more TikTok.
Paul Ansell said the constant questioning of how he looked and behaved during the search for his missing partner of 12 years was ‘a horrible thing to experience’
Ms Bulley vanished on January 27 in 2023 while walking her dog Willow along the River Wyre in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire
‘It’s very, very intrusive, which was a horrible thing to experience on its own, let alone when you’re experiencing everything that we were. It can engulf you.’
After a frenzied three-week search, which threatened to be derailed by internet sleuths, Ms Bulley’s body was found by a member of the public on February 19.
Mr Ansell previously told a documentary two years ago how he was getting direct messages from people that he had never met.
He said: ‘They don’t know me, they don’t know us, they don’t know Nikki. They know nothing about us. Just messages like “you b******”. “We know what you did”. “You know you can’t hide Paul”, that kind of stuff.’
Discussing the impact social media had, he went on to say: ‘It wasn’t a huge part of our lives. But yeah, when you experience something like this, you realise what a huge monster it can be, I guess.’
Friends of the couple were even forced to beg online trolls to stop making ‘disgusting allegations’ and ‘vile theories’ online.
A coroner recorded Ms Bulley’s death as accidental, and said she fell into the river and suffered ‘cold water shock’, and there was ‘no evidence’ to suggest suicide.
Police had accused ‘TikTokers’ of ‘playing private detectives’ in the area amid her disappearance, and said they were ‘inundated with false information, accusations and rumours’ relating to the case.
People on social media made false accusations about there being third-party involvement, and rumours were spread about a derelict house on the other side of the River Wyre, a red van in the area, a fisherman seen nearby and a glove belonging to Ms Bulley, which were all dismissed by police.
Her family have previously hit out at ‘wildly inaccurate speculation’ after the 45-year-old’s death.
An independent College of Policing review of the investigation into her disappearance found the relationship between police and the media ‘to be fractured’, and urged for it to be rebuilt.
It also criticised the disclosure of personal information about Ms Bulley’s health struggles as ‘avoidable and unnecessary’.
