DAILY MAIL COMMENT: This victim-blaming won't help find Nicola

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: This victim-blaming won’t help find Nicola

How can it possibly help in the search for missing Lancashire dog walker Nicola Bulley to release intimate and deeply sensitive details of her personal life?

The disclosures that she was struggling with the menopause, had an alcohol problem and was recently visited by health professionals concerned about her vulnerability don’t alter the fact that after three weeks of police dithering, her whereabouts remain a complete mystery.

And while her problems might conceivably have had a bearing on why she disappeared, they do not explain how – or more pertinently, where – she could be now.

So why would the police, so reluctant nowadays to reveal anything to the Press, put such intensely private information into the public domain?

Could it be to deflect attention from their own shortcomings, especially their decision not to treat the riverbank where Nicola disappeared as a possible crime scene from the outset?

How can it possibly help in the search for missing Lancashire dog walker Nicola Bulley (pictured with her partner Paul Ansell) to release intimate and deeply sensitive details of her personal life? 

So why would the police, so reluctant nowadays to reveal anything to the Press, put such intensely private information into the public domain? Pictured: Assistant Chief Constable Peter Lawson and Senior Investigating Officer Detective Superintendent Rebecca Smith of Lancashire Police hold a press conference on Wednesday

Their message appears to be that it’s not their fault they haven’t found Nicola, but her own. That because she was vulnerable, menopausal and had an alcohol problem, she must have jumped or fallen into the river. No need to investigate further. Case closed. It risks being seen as a cruel piece of victim-blaming.

READ MORE: Lancs Police refers itself to watchdog over contact with Nicola Bulley before she vanished

 

Meanwhile, in a statement issued via the police yesterday, the family called for an end to the ‘appalling speculation’ about her private life, adding: ‘The police know the truth about Nikki.’

But it was the police themselves who fuelled this speculation with their ill-judged revelations of the previous day. The blame for this farrago of conjecture and innuendo lies squarely with them. If they had done their job properly in the first place it would never have come about.

If they had kept the public properly informed of developments from the outset, the keyboard warriors on social media would not have been tempted to fill the vacuum with theories of their own.

Vulnerable and troubled as she may have been, Nicola deserved more from the police than a cursory search and then the assumption she had fallen into the river and drowned.

Anything could have happened to her, including being the victim of foul play. The police’s apparent failure to cover all bases – especially at the start of this investigation – is a disgrace.

Courts flout the law

To be caught once carrying a knife on the streets without good reason is bad enough. To be caught twice suggests the culprit is a danger to society.

That’s why the Government came up with its ‘two strikes and you’re out’ policy, meaning an immediate custodial sentence for repeat offenders. Yet the courts are still setting four out of ten free, opting instead for ‘community resolutions’.

Knife crime has reached epidemic proportions and this is a sensible deterrent to tackle the problem. It is for the courts to implement it – not arrogantly ignore it.

The Central Criminal Court, commonly known as the Old Bailey, in London

Markets on the up

The FTSE100 closed at above 8,000 points for the first time yesterday. And while the number is largely symbolic, the performance of the UK stock market in recent months has been a huge bonus not just for the companies involved but also savers and investors, including pension funds.

But there is a large cloud on the horizon – the 6 per cent hike in corporation tax. This will stifle investment, imperil jobs and be a drag anchor on growth.

Former chancellor George Osborne said yesterday he would not go through with the rise if he were still in 11 Downing Street. We hope the current incumbent Jeremy Hunt was listening.

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