Nicola Bulley and the debacle of Lancashire police’s investigation

The storm that has engulfed Lancashire Police – after the force revealed that missing mum Nicola Bulley had ‘issues with alcohol’ – has been a long time brewing. 

Since February 29 2012 to be precise. The Leveson Inquiry into press wrongdoing was in full flow when, on that leap year day 11 years ago, the Met Police made a public admission: they had indeed loaned an old police horse to Rebekah Brooks. This was perfectly normal, they argued. The horse needed somewhere to live and the News UK chief paid for its upkeep. But the episode came to symbolise what the press’s many critics had long insisted was a too-cosy relationship between police and media.

Panicked by this accusation, senior police officers tore up the rule book. The long-established working relationship between police and the media was derailed from that moment – and the apparent shambles that has been the police’s handling of the Nicola Bulley inquiry is one of its many consequences.

For decades it had been perfectly normal for a local newspaper reporter to have a weekly meeting with a duty sergeant at the police station who would read out entries of all logged crimes.