Andrew Snowden, Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire presents the Independent External Review of Lancashire Constabulary’s Operational Response to the widely publicised missing person Nicola Bulley, at a press conference in County Hall, Preston
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00:00 Good morning everybody and thank you for taking the time to attend today's press conference
00:26 as I publish the independent review into Lancashire Constabulary's handling of the Nicola Dulling
00:31 missing from home search and investigation. I will take a few moments to outline the context
00:39 of the review, the terms of reference and the next steps. Chief Constable Marsh from
00:45 the College of Policing will then outline the methodology of the review, its key findings
00:51 and recommendations. Our thoughts first and foremost remain with Nicola's family and friends
00:59 at this difficult time. Even the publication of the report, whilst providing many answers
01:06 for them, will involve a public and painful reminder of their loss. I hope all of us will
01:15 remain entirely sensitive to that and respect their privacy. As I said in my public interview
01:25 when Nicola was tragically found, whilst the police lead theory had sadly proven to be
01:30 correct and the search and investigation focused on the right strategy and being well resourced,
01:38 the public rightly had questions about how this became such an international story with
01:45 often such negative headlines and also with regard to the disclosure of Nicola's most
01:53 personal and private details. As Commissioner, I am the public's voice in policing and it
02:02 is my job to hold the police to account. This review was commissioned to answer those questions
02:12 so that I could take external assurance and expertise to be able to answer them effectively
02:18 and to ensure that all of UK policing can learn lessons from this home-missing-from-home
02:26 investigation that attracted unprecedented global interest. This review has been timed
02:34 to conclude when other statutory bodies have finished their own proceedings to ensure that
02:41 they can be captured as part of this process. These were the Coroner's inquest to determine
02:49 Nicola's cause of death. The Coroner returned a verdict of accidental death by driving.
02:58 The Information Commissioner's Office, to determine the lawfulness of the release of
03:03 personal information about Nicola, they determined the release to be lawful. The Independent
03:10 Office for Police Conduct, to consider the self-referral by Lancashire Constabulary,
03:17 they considered there to be no case for misconduct. I commissioned the College of Policing to
03:24 conduct the review as the national independent body for police training and standards, including
03:32 being the home for the National Centre for Police Search. It was commissioned to review
03:39 the period from when Nicola was first reported missing to the point at which she was sadly
03:46 discovered. It will have three work streams to focus on; research and investigation, communications
03:55 and media engagement, and the disclosure of personal information. I would like to thank
04:03 the College for their diligent, professional and thorough work over the past few months.
04:10 I have received their findings, their conclusions and recommendations, and as Commissioner,
04:16 I accept them in full. As part of the process, I asked the College to notify me immediately
04:25 if they discovered anything that would amount to action needing to be taken against any
04:31 officer or employee of the Constabulary for misconduct or negligence of duty, or anything
04:38 that would have altered the outcome of the search and investigation or indicated that
04:43 Nicola could definitely have been found sooner. There have been no such findings and therefore
04:51 this review is very much a learning review, with a number of recommendations which, given
04:59 the unprecedented nature of this case, are mainly for policing nationally. There are
05:07 also many areas of this case where Lancashire Constabulary represented the very best of
05:14 policing, with the search and investigation being well resourced, professionally conducted
05:21 and calling upon national good practice. It is often too easy to sweep past significant
05:30 amounts of good work and exemplary conduct to get to the areas of learning in a review.
05:40 Given the whole core of this operational response is praised by the review, I would therefore
05:46 like to take the opportunity to pause and thank the many officers, staff and volunteers
05:54 of Lancashire Constabulary who worked tirelessly and professionally to find Nicola. I know
06:02 that this is not the outcome any of them wanted, but they did their utmost for Nicola and her
06:12 family. Following on from the publication of this review, I have informed the Chief
06:16 Constable of Lancashire Constabulary that I want a full report on how the Constabulary
06:22 will implement all of the recommendations for it in this review to be presented to me
06:28 at an accountability board early in the new year. I will now hand over to Chief Constable
06:35 Andy Marsh, Chief Executive of the College of Policing to talk through the review.
06:42 Thank you Commissioner. Good morning and thank you all for coming today. Firstly I want to
06:49 start by recognising the immense tragedy at the centre of this report, the death of Nicola
06:54 Bulley. The loss of Nicola has left her family and friends dealing with immeasurable grief.
06:59 My thoughts continue to be with them. As they are approaching their first Christmas without
07:05 Nicola, I know that we will all agree we must consider their feelings as we talk about this
07:09 report. I would also like to pay tribute to Nicola's family's strength and patience.
07:16 Now we have completed this review I hope they are given the space to grieve in peace. The
07:22 College is responsible for setting standards for the police in England and Wales. We used
07:26 evidence based knowledge in everything we develop and we have reviewed this case against
07:31 those robust standards. The College was commissioned by Lancashire's Police and Crime Commissioner
07:36 Andrew Snowden in February of this year to undertake a fully independent review of the
07:41 operational response for the reported missing person Nicola Bulley. The review was tasked
07:46 with providing insight into the effectiveness of the constabulary's response over the course
07:50 of the period that Nicola was missing. We have now formally presented this report to
07:55 the Police and Crime Commissioner. The purpose of the College of Policing review was not
08:00 to attribute blame or rerun the investigation into Nicola's disappearance and death but
08:06 rather to identify the learning for Lancashire Police and policing more broadly. We have
08:11 not shied away from criticism and I will come to the areas for learning we have identified
08:16 but I want to start by saying we found the police investigation and search to be well
08:21 conducted by Lancashire Constabulary. We spoke to many officers and police staff and volunteers
08:27 who worked on this investigation and their dedication and commitment was clear to see.
08:33 They demonstrated the very best of policing. Their professionalism and operational activity
08:38 was exemplary and while there is much to learn from this tragic incident Lancashire Constabulary
08:43 should be recognised for that. I also want to put on record my sincere thanks to everyone
08:48 who supported this review, answered our questions and provided us with any information we requested.
08:54 We found a genuine willingness to learn. I don't propose to go through each recommendation
08:59 made in the report in detail but rather speak to the overall issues that we found. Looking
09:05 at all of the evidence available to us we believe the decision not to declare a critical
09:10 incident set the tone within the Constabulary and led to several challenges. The College
09:15 of Policing defines a critical incident as any incident where the effectiveness of the
09:21 police response is likely to have a significant impact on the confidence of the victim, their
09:26 family and/or the community. This investigation clearly met that definition. So whilst we
09:33 found the Constabulary deployed considerable resources and identified Nicholas' disappearance
09:38 as high risk the failure to declare a critical incident is significant and impacts on the
09:43 decision making process throughout the investigation. As you will know Nicholas' disappearance
09:49 received unprecedented levels of interest from both mainstream media and social media.
09:55 The Constabulary's press office logged more than 500 media calls and 75,000 inbound social
10:01 media comments over a period of about a month. At the peak of media attention the investigation
10:08 generated 6,500 news articles globally in a single day. On social media the BBC estimated
10:15 that TikTok alone featured 270 million videos with the hashtag of Nicola Woodley's name.
10:23 There is no doubt how hard the communications team worked during this investigation. Many
10:27 worked long hours, provided sound advice and tried their absolute best. But we found the
10:33 Constabulary did not recognise the extent of the media interest in this case or the
10:37 impact it was having on public confidence. The coverage of Nicholas' disappearance
10:42 was on a par with many national media stories in recent times and was one of, if not the
10:48 most, high profile media incidents that Lancashire Constabulary has ever experienced. One of
10:54 the decisions which is arguably the most significant impact on public confidence was the release
11:00 of personal information about Nicholas' health. We found that due process was followed
11:04 in this decision and that it was lawful but we are in no doubt that releasing this information
11:10 in the manner the Constabulary did was both avoidable and unnecessary. Whilst there is
11:16 substantial learning for the Constabulary, there are also findings and recommendations
11:20 for policing nationally. The review found the wider relationship between the police
11:24 and the media to be fractured and identified that action needs to be taken on all sides
11:30 to help build trust. The impact of social media on policing was illustrated starkly
11:35 and the significance for investigations and public confidence must also be acknowledged.
11:42 The activity to address both of these areas of learning must now be considered closely
11:46 at a national level including by the College of Policing.
11:50 Finally, I want to put firmly on record that the Constabulary welcomed the review team
11:55 with transparency and candour. It is of significant credit to Lancashire Constabulary that their
12:00 officers and staff have displayed and continue to display a real willingness to learn. We
12:06 stand ready to support them, the Police and Crime Commissioner and wider policing as we
12:11 look to implement the important learning from this review.
12:16 As this report concludes, we continue to have Nicola, her family and friends in our thoughts.
12:22 Thank you.
12:22 [BLANK_AUDIO]