On the morning of 27 January 2023, Nicola Bulley is walking her dog along the river in the quiet Lancashire village of St Michael’s on Wyre, when she disappears without a trace.
The question of what has happened to her transfixes the nation. The 42-year-old mortgage adviser and mum of two seemed to have no reason to disappear, so where has she gone? To add to the mystery, her dog is running loose, and her phone is still on a Teams call.
The police suspect she has fallen in the river. But many fear she has been abducted. Over the next three weeks, the search for Nicola snowballs into an unprecedented global media and social media storm. Her disappearance leads to sensational headlines, conspiracies swirling online, the police revealing Nicola’s intimate personal information, and TikTok sleuths descending on the village to carry out their own amateur ‘investigations’.
Nicola’s family are swept up in an unprecedented level of scrutiny, while going through the most traumatic time of their lives. The frenzy of online speculation and media attention continue to escalate, even after Nicola’s body is finally found in the river a mile from where she disappeared.
With exclusive access to Nicola’s family and those at the heart of the case including Lancashire Police, journalists, the person who found her and social media creators, The Search for Nicola Bulley charts how it all unfolded. The film examines the impact the events have on Nicola’s family and raises questions about how the case was handled by the police, media and social media.
OVERNIGHT RATINGS:
The Search for Nicola Bulley (BBC1) 9pm-10pm
1.7m (14.1%)
Rogan Productions’ single about the media storm surrounding Nicola Bulley’s disappearance last year was the second best-performing programme across the main channels at 9pm.
“This documentary was a study in how one family’s tragedy was hijacked for clicks and likes. Nicola’s parents and sister, along with her husband Paul, provided insight into what it is like for an ordinary family to find itself in this nightmare situation. They have lost someone they loved. Two girls have lost a mother. But for the TikTokers, it was all just content.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph
“Director Rachel Lob-Levyt’s thorough, methodical and evenly paced documentary introduced us to several of the podcasters and tweeters – every one of them the sort of needy attention-seekers you’d cross the road to avoid.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail
“Surveying the frenzy with the cool clarity of hindsight, BBC1’s The Search for Nicola Bulley revisited the case, paying tribute to Nicola’s life while shedding unflattering light on the online sleuths who swarmed after her death. It made for a grim but fascinating documentary.”
Emily Watkins, The i
“The Search for Nicola Bulley, while excellent public service broadcasting, was arguably mistitled. The real, enraging meat of it was not the police search, but the conspiracy theorists, self-proclaimed ‘sleuths’ and clickbait morons who meddled with that search by peddling cruel untruths and hunches.”
Carol Midgley, The Times