The van is the sort of vehicle 'you can live in'
Police officers searching for
Nicola Bulley could be attempting to track down a "tatty-looking" red van which was parked close to the spot where the mum-of-two disappeared, reports suggest.
The 45-year-old vanished while walking her dog by the river in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire, two weeks ago, Friday.
The development comes as the search for the mortgage adviser on Thursday
moved to Morecambe Bay. Two boats with specialist police teams have been seen in the sea, before heading upstream on either side of the river where Lancashire police believe Nicola accidentally fell in while walking her dog on January 27.
And after a specialist group drafted in to help trawl the river for Nicola
pulled out of the operation on Wednesday night, suggesting she is not where police think she is, and amid calls for an
abandoned house to be searched.
Nicola was last seen walking her dog at 9.10am, having earlier dropped her daughters, aged six and nine, at school. Her phone, still connected to a work call, and the dogs lead and harness were found a short time later. Police are yet to account for a missing 10-minute period but their
"main working hypothesis" is that she accidentally fell in the river.
It has now emerged that a concerned resident spotted a suspicious-looking vehicle, believed to be a Renault, outside a barn in St Michael's on Wyre on the day Nicola disappeared, and reported it to police.
The 55-year-old witness, who had not been named, told
the Times they saw the "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.
“I contacted the police again on Friday and spoke to a police officer. It could have been a Renault van."
The St Michaels on Wyre resident said the vehicle was the "sort of van you can live in".
Lancashire Police on Thursday reassured the public that their search for Nicola is continuing: "People may have seen less police activity today than previously in the area of the river above the weir but that is not because we have stepped down our searches, it is because the focus of the search has moved further downstream into the area of the river which becomes tidal and then out towards the sea."
Superintendent Sally Riley of the Lancashire Constabulary has urged the public this week to avoid "distressing" speculation about what might have happened to Nicola, saying. "We would ask that people in the wider community, particularly on social media and online, do not speculate as to what may have happened to Nicola," she said
