The disappearance of Nicola Bulley

kinetic747 said:
On the instructions of the coroner, they're searching the river again in the area she was found. Strange.
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I don't think it's at all unusual for a coroner to instruct the police etc to check for additional evidence or to perform additional testing.
The coroner has the job of legally determining the cause of death and circumstances around it, that means trying to ensure that every reasonable avenue of investigation has been fully checked as their conclusion can result in things like potential changes to the law, industry standards, best practice and helping to determine liability.
In an unusual or high profile case they're also likely to be even more cautious than normal because they want to be really sure that they're not leaving questions that could have been answered.

What is unusual is that people are actually paying attention to a coroners work, so are seeing things that might be relatively routine and then reading more into it than there really is.

A friend died during lockdown and IIRC the coroner in her case ordered additional checks and tests because of her previous medical history and some questions about how/why she died and the circumstances (no suggestion of foul play, but did something get missed with her health).
 
TheVoice said:
Easy to say that with the benefit of hindsight but the reality isn't that simple.

www.bbc.co.uk

Nicola Bulley: Why can it take so long to find bodies?

The science, skills and practice of finding bodies in water shows it is one of the toughest challenges in policing.
www.bbc.co.uk
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What a load of rubbish! :cry:

I was swam with my dad in river clyde near my house back in summer 1983 when water was calm still and warm, water was crystal clear and about 5 feet deep in middle of river canal at the time, I can see rocks and things under my feets. About 10 years later I walked to the river same spot found the water was only just less than 1 feet, I walked across the river to other side then few years later I found a chair, mattress, clothes, bottles and a burnt out car in river when water was only about 3 feet at the time. It was no way they can magically disappeared under the water.

www.thesun.co.uk

Huge Nicola Bulley update as police divers return to river months after death

DIVERS have returned to the river where Nicola Bulley’s body was discovered. Video shows specialist cops searching the water to try confirm the tragic mum’s cause of death. Police say D…
www.thesun.co.uk www.thesun.co.uk

Watch the video where her body was found, 2 police officers was in river but the water was only just between 1 and 3 feet. Nicola wore a long thick coat, Specialist Group International (SGI) Peter Faulding must be daft easily mistaken dismissed long thick coat as river weed. :rolleyes: :o
 
The river you went into was clear on the days you went into it voluntarily, and at the place you went in so it stands to reason that the entire river must be like that all the time...

The stream near me is lovely and crystal clear in the summer, especially if it's not rained for a while, and I can see things like fish and crawfish on the bottom of it in it from several feet away with ease.
The same stream after almost any rain upstream rapidly becomes so cloudy that you couldn't see you hand in front of your face if you were in it, and a few hundred meters away from where I normally see it the visibility is often worse even on good days due to the way the water flows and disturbances in the silt.

Going by footage of the Wyre the river seems to vary massively in visibility, I've seen video where it was crystal clear for someone fishing and you could see the bottom (about 30cm deep) with ease at his location, I've also seen video of it where it looks like visibility is measured in centimetres and very clearly much deeper.

It's also worth remembering she went missing in winter, not the summer, so the "natural" light level is going to be much worse as well, and the chances are the river would be running faster with more water entering it along it's way, which means more silt being carried into the river, and more silt being disturbed/taking longer to settle.
 
Just said on the news that the coroner has requested the police to do another search to look for evidence because they can't determine a cause of death, which suggests she didn't drown maybe?
 
I would imagine that without finding something like a bullet in her, a broken neck or similar, a corpse that's been in the water that long might be somewhat hard to assess, cause of death wise. But it does suggest the coroner has some reservations. I can't imagine he / she just told the police divers to just "go look in the river again", there must be something specific that's being looked for.
 
rumple9 said:
Just said on the news that the coroner has requested the police to do another search to look for evidence because they can't determine a cause of death, which suggests she didn't drown maybe?
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Your shot in the dark guesses are astonishing, you should become a journalist for the daily mail.
 
sidimmu said:
Could be an absolute range of things, they could want additional samples, could be absolutely anything.
What it did not say is that - the coroner has requested additional search for evidence as it is clear she did not perish in the water.
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And that's not what rumple said either, his post was posed as a theoretical musing:

"which suggests she didn't drown maybe?"
 
If they can't determine a cause of death then they can't rule anything in or out, surely?

I don't know what it is about rivers in West Lancashire. On Good Friday we had a massive river incident where the Lune Aqueduct takes the Lancaster Canal over the River Lune. I was walking back from shopping and there were a lot of emergency services everywhere. They wouldn't let me on the aqueduct so I had to extend my walk by two miles to go to the next bridge. There were two police vans on one side of the river, about ten rescue people on the aqueduct, three Coastguard search dinghys on the river, a helicopter above, and a mountain rescue truck, a fire engine, and three more police vehicles on the other side. The aqueduct was open again the next day but I couldn't find any news anywhere online. Not even a reference to it on Twitter. I guess they are being more circumspect after the furore around the Bulley case and how they handled it. How can there be no news on an incident that big?
 
Werewolf said:
I don't think it's at all unusual for a coroner to instruct the police etc to check for additional evidence or to perform additional testing.
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Indeed. Even in clear cases of death by suicide where the cause of death is obvious they'll often request further investigation/research to determine any influential factors e.g. financial, domestic etc. It's a normal part of the process.
 
Tuppy_Glossop said:
If they can't determine a cause of death then they can't rule anything in or out, surely?

I don't know what it is about rivers in West Lancashire. On Good Friday we had a massive river incident where the Lune Aqueduct takes the Lancaster Canal over the River Lune. I was walking back from shopping and there were a lot of emergency services everywhere. They wouldn't let me on the aqueduct so I had to extend my walk by two miles to go to the next bridge. There were two police vans on one side of the river, about ten rescue people on the aqueduct, three Coastguard search dinghys on the river, a helicopter above, and a mountain rescue truck, a fire engine, and three more police vehicles on the other side. The aqueduct was open again the next day but I couldn't find any news anywhere online. Not even a reference to it on Twitter. I guess they are being more circumspect after the furore around the Bulley case and how they handled it. How can there be no news on an incident that big?
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It's called packing the overtime in :)
 
How do people know what is usual or unusual about a coroner asking for more evidence?

I've never heard of a coroner doing anything other than confirming the death and how they died.

I don't know what the police would be looking for.
 
BowdonUK said:
How do people know what is usual or unusual about a coroner asking for more evidence?

I've never heard of a coroner doing anything other than confirming the death and how they died.

I don't know what the police would be looking for.
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Some of us have had experience, have talked to those with experience, or have paid attention to previous cases?

Most of a coroners work is likely to be very basic, routine and relatively boring, but they have a a legal and statutory duty to ensure that they ensure their reports are as full and accurate as they can be, and that will mean they're often the first person to see every single bit of information about a case, and if they feel there may be something missing they have to attempt to look into it. Remember the police will be looking for if there is something suspicious, the coroner is looking at the whole picture and has a very different but related duty, and part of that can be to make recommendations to help prevent the same thing happening again. IIRC it's often coroners who end up playing a large part in updating safety regulations by highlighting failures as he/she will be looking at everything with an eye to what might have caused the death to be more likely/where there was a preventable issue.

In this case it could be something as basic as if a shoe is missing* the coroner might want them to try and find it as it could help confirm where she went into the water for at least two reasons, one is that it helps confirm a clearer picture of what happened which helps give closure, and it could also result in a change in the guidance for placing the benches to try and prevent such an accident happening again (it looked in a bad place in terms of how close it was to the slope for anyone who lost their balance, which would be a safety issue, especially for the disabled/elderly/intoxicated).


*this is a wild but fairly reasonable example, given how common it is to lose a shoe when you step into sucking river mud if you're not careful or the shoe isn't really well done up.
 
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BowdonUK said:
How do people know what is usual or unusual about a coroner asking for more evidence?

I've never heard of a coroner doing anything other than confirming the death and how they died.

I don't know what the police would be looking for.
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I don't really want to go into it too much but someone close to me died in 2021 and the coroner called in a specialist pathology team and still wasn't happy when they came back with natural causes but left it up to the family as to whether to pursue it or not - which they didn't as enough time had dragged on and there was nothing to be gained/wouldn't change anything.
 
Chris Wilson said:
I would imagine that without finding something like a bullet in her, a broken neck or similar, a corpse that's been in the water that long might be somewhat hard to assess, cause of death wise. But it does suggest the coroner has some reservations. I can't imagine he / she just told the police divers to just "go look in the river again", there must be something specific that's being looked for.
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I think it would be pretty obvious to a pathologist if death wasn't by drowning - eg lack of water in the lungs for a start
 
rumple9 said:
I think it would be pretty obvious to a pathologist if death wasn't by drowning - eg lack of water in the lungs for a star
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With respect to your opinion, I think it's far from cut and dried, if you pardon the morbid pun.

"The jury is still out on the lack of water in the lungs of a deceased person submerged in water that did not succumb to drowning.

The perimortem Laryngospasm persisting into postmortem hypertonicity theory is extremely uncommon as to not be statistically relevant. Transient laryngospasm occurred in 2% of documented drownings and never lasted until postmortem (it would loosen up as the throat muscles became hypotonic due to anoxia).

An individuals breath holding time varies wildly, but the gasp is unavoidable and the tidal volume of one typical gasp exceeds the lethal amount of water required for death. That means only 1 gasp of water is required for drowning".

(Tidied up, but hopefully no fact or nuance removed, from a post by a wishfully none native English speaking medic). Medical terms verbatim.
 
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