'Nicola Bulley's reputation 'destroyed' by police'

[MyrtIe]

Article here

The points made about victim blaming and the police disclosing this information to cover themselves are spot on imo.

The usual gutter press are having a field day with this today.

What exactly was the point of it? What's it achieved, apart from compounding the heartache of her loved ones?

YABU - the police were right to divulge this sensitive information as it was relevant to the investigation

YANBU - there was absolutely no need to do so

I think in the beginning the police were criticised hugely for not looking for a cause because someone who appeared on the surface to have it all would have had no apparent reason to have harmed themselves/run away rather then coming to harm at the hands of someone else.

The amount of speculation has been horrific, and it sounds like the knowledge of her health issues was likely to become public very soon, with that comment about "selling stories", so I don't think that the disclosure was wrong. What would be more harmful, what the police said, or some neighbour/exfriend telling a lurid story of how she got tanked up and started screaming at someone , or drank herself into a stupor, or similar salacious story?

So Lancs police now confirm that they ruled out 3rd party involvement, because of being able to identify every1 with a phone in that field! Do they really think, if a man planned to harm a woman, that he'd take his tracking device (his phone) with him!

This is another bad press

Not suggesting any other involvement I just think its a bad comment to make.

Link? As far as I can see, Lancashire police have said no such thing.

I've not read this thread but I don't think her reputation is trashed in anyway shape or form??

People can become problem drinkers at any time in their life and that's nothing to be ashamed of.

None of us know how we will react when our lives get hit by something unexpected!

I think it's deeply unfortunate that the police seemed to treat it like a missing person and not a crime scene. I can't understand why it can't be both.

Sorry - were you quoting someone else? In that case, my bad.

It’s difficult isn’t it, we still don’t know all the facts of the case quite rightly so can’t possibly know why this has been released now.

I think it’s unsettling because as a woman who can suffer with severe anxiety, would that mean that if I went missing, police would just write it off as me harming myself or going off on my own? Would the fact I had specific medical procedures that caused my anxiety also be released? It’s an unsettling invasion of privacy whatever their reasons.

I refuse to speculate about what might have happened, but I do hope Nicola is alive and somewhere safe. And I pray that if she is, having this information across the news doesn’t make her feel like she can’t come home.

I do think it’s important that we are allowed to question public services though. Tiktok detectives are another matter entirely.

I would be curious to know if the timing of NB's issues aligned in any way with the Covid vaccine. There have been so many reports of menstrual cycles going haywire in the months after it. I am fully vaccinated, but experienced some pretty horrendous symptoms which I only later realised were the same month as the vaccine. In any case, NB is far from alone in her struggles. They need to be spoken about more so that women don't feel so alone. I am praying for NB and her family.

Also fully vaccinated but no menstrual issues whatsoever for me. What on earth does it matter if the Covid vaccine did affect her!? How does that relate to finding her!?

It doesn't relate to finding her. My comment is not about finding her.

Many women had issues with periods after COVID @Caiti19

The thing is… what "reputation" did she have that could be "destroyed:?
She isn't a public figure after all.
If she were the CEO of the Salvation Army (for example) and it came out that she had a drinking problem, that might damage her reputation.

It's just like the murder of Emma Pattison: something horrible happened to a woman, it must be somehow her fault. Too hormonal, too successful, too female

The sad thing is that it's not a surprise any more.

Even if tomorrow it was revealed it was one of them who did it or they were covering up for some "person" who did, it would barely raise an eyebrow.

JackiePlace assuming you're not the CEO of the Salvation Army either, how would you like the world to know about your private medical and mental health issues? You don't have to be a public figure for the people in your life and local area to develop perceptions of who you are and what you are about.

If she's chosen to just take "time out" she's wasted police time, put those divers lives at risk, and used up massive local resources. Not something to be taken lightly I'd have thought.

I presume that you are a high up member of the Lancashire Police Force in order to know that they didn't release that information to make themselves look better. If you @Newnamenewme23, are such a person, can you either here, or through another statement to the public (where you needn't mention that you are Newname on Mumsnet) give your name, rank, and proof that you and your Police Force did not release that information to make yourselves look better.

You may as well release that information, because I am sure that most of us in the general public, would be really happy and relieved to know that the Police Force have not become a mere shadow of what they used to be, and that we still have reasons to respect them. However, if you are not one of their elite, then you are just exercising your right to voice your opinion, as was I.

By the way, I think that I probably know my beloved Granddad rather better than you do, even though he has been dead for over 40 years now. He would not only know that I do not make snap decisions - I tend to think about anything important (and I think that this subject - the police releasing that information - is extremely important) from all sorts of angles and viewpoints, before reaching any conclusions - but I am about 95% sure that he would have agreed with me.

When you, or anyone else proves to me/ us, the general public, without any reasonable doubt, that the Police in this case have followed all procedures as carefully and diligently as possible, and that all of their press conferences have been purely broadcast for all the right reasons, within all of the Police Forces guidelines, and purely for any help they can give in bringing Nicola home - safely and happily if she is still (hopefully) alive - then as I said in a previous post on this thread, I will be very happy to be proved wrong, and to, therefore, give my abject apologies to the Lancashire Police Force.

One last thing though, I wonder why the Home Secretary has asked them to explain themselves, I would have thought that she should have already known the reason, and agreed with it if it was all above board?

The family have given the reasons the police released the information.

I am not giving my opinion, that is what the family have said in a press release, that it was done to stop others selling the information to the press.

you are suspicious of the police and their motives, yet you would believe a press release stating the reasons they did not do it to make themselves look better. Yet you don’t believe the family, who have no reason to protect the police or the investigation?

So you suspect self harm?

It’s become clear this morning why the police have kept so quiet on the original details. And possibly why PA said he felt angry in that TV interview (which I thought was a bit weird). They’ve referred themselves to the watchdog over the earlier visit to her home. Trying to get help for people with MH problems and addiction is a circle of hell. Pure hell. Been there done that. It will all come out eventually but I’m guessing the police were less than helpful (yes I know it’s not strictly their job to attend MH crisis but the reality is that they have to for a multitude of reasons).

No, he wasn't @MrsDanversGlidesAgain you are correct about that.

However, when he was a young policeman, with a very young family, he was "advised" by a paramilitary organisation in his home Country to leave that Country or he and his young family would be killed. Most of his colleagues with the same specific feature as my DGDad (Thank God there weren't many, but of course even one was too many) were killed outright. He was apparently warned first because even that paramilitary organisation agreed that he was a man of honour, who had treated any of that paramilitary group's members (and their families) with scrupulous fairness and compassion, when he had had to deal with them.

[NB. I am definitely not saying that his colleagues who were murdered, were any less honourable than my Granddad. Maybe they hadn't had the opportunity to prove their own characteristics, as I said, there weren't many of them, and maybe they dealt with other factions in that society.]

So he had to leave his home Country, as did his Wife and Children, and his and her families behind, and move to another Country - not quite as bad as it sounds, but also not great, and very scary for them all. He was employed in that Country as a young policeman, and grew through the ranks, and was eventually given that medal for bravery.

Therefore, I think that if my Dear Grandad had been policing today, he would have coped with today's weird pressures just as well as he did with the ones in the past - and he was actually on the front pages of some newspapers even then, but always in a positive manner.

I think it is unfortunate that so many think that someone with an alcohol issue or a mental health problem (HRT related or not) makes one a person of ill repute.

So much stigma still. The overreaction to MH / alcohol issues are being such horrible things that her reputation has been ruined by people being aware is really just stigma.

The added context is incredibly helpful in understanding the possibilities related to her being a missing person. Without any context it is just a woman who poof vanished while walking her dog. The knowledge from her family that she was in a MH crisis and had been using alcohol to cope with it makes self-harm / choice to disappear a far more likely option. Just like when a young man disappears walking home late at night - knowing he came from a bar and was inebriated is often shared as context as it helps make sense of the disappearance. It isn't being shared to shame him or her. It isn't shameful to have an alcohol issue or to struggle with MH related to menopause or HRT. It doesn't ruin her reputation or make her a woman of ill repute. Alcohol and MH issues are both very common health issues and not something that needs to be kept hidden out of shame. I am not sure why so many are horrified. If she had been struggling with a head injury or epilepsy and they released that to help explain the context, would it be seen as ruining her reputation and a horrible awful thing to say publicly about someone?

It’s become clear this morning why the police have kept so quiet on the original details.

It doesn’t explain why the police were quiet - normally in the circumstances that someone goes missing when vulnerable - the police flag that from the start so the public have a grasp of what might be going on what they’re looking out for.

Had the police done that the media narrative would not have spiralled out of control. This case is a lesson in how not to deal with a MP case.

What’s particularly strange is that while it makes it more likely she may have ended up in the water, it also makes it more likely to have left of her own volition - so the rigid focus on the river is still problematic

It doesn’t explain why the police were quiet - normally in the circumstances that someone goes missing when vulnerable - the police flag that from the start so the public have a grasp of what might be going on what they’re looking out for.

I’m surprised that people feel they needed that. The speed of the police involvement gave that away right at the beginning surely?

I find it hard to believe the press, at least, weren’t well aware that there was something that made her vulnerable given how quickly the police got involved.

I don't understand why we, the public, need to know why someone is vulnerable though? In what way does that change whether you come forward as a witness? As that's the only benefit to the case I can see.

Mirabai oh I 100% agree that they were mad not to state she was vulnerable from the start. There would have been little media interest and probably no media circus. Their actions have been inexplicable. However I don’t think the police actually care as long as the heat is off them. I reckon this provides the only explanation for not handling it as they would a normal MP. They thought, ‘oh shit that woman we dismissed 2 weeks ago in a crisis call out is now missing and it will come out we visited and did nothing, and now probably the worst has happened’. Let’s not mention she’s vulnerable and keep the heat off. Cue massive backfire.

Now this must happen all the time (police visiting people who eventually come to some type of harm or drop off the radar). However I’d wager it probably doesn’t happen that much to white middle class professional people that might kick up merry hell over poor handling.