Nicola Bulley and the shame of the TikTok ghouls

Ghoul – ‘a person morbidly interested in death or disaster’ – is such a descriptive word. There are a lot of them about these days; all too many emerged in the aftermath of the disappearance of Nicola Bulley.

In this tragic case, involving a 45-year-old woman who went missing three weeks ago while walking her dog, we have seen the inevitable grisly conclusion of the ghoul mentality. A body found this week in the River Wyre in Lancashire has been identified as that of Nicola Bulley. But even now, the ghouls who have followed this case continue to speculate wildly about what happened.

I’m sure that some of the people who turned up to ‘help’ Lancashire Police – so many that eventually a dispersal order had to be issued, lest they inadvertently destroyed crucial evidence – were sincere in their desire to find her. But plenty were probably there to take selfies.