Dan Wootton. A man almost too stupid even for the Daily Fail.
He has pronounced, as a member of the Media, that the family should be outraged by the police.
Whereas the family are quite clearly supportive of the job the police have done, and are outraged by both mainstream and new media.
Could try reporting on the role of the media in this. You know, the facts. Rather than hide the role of the media in heaping misery on this poor family by trying to apportion blame on others.
Dan Wootton. A man almost too stupid even for the Daily Fail.
He has pronounced, as a member of the Media, that the family should be outraged by the police.
Whereas the family are quite clearly supportive of the job the police have done, and are outraged by both mainstream and new media.
Could try reporting on the role of the media in this. You know, the facts. Rather than hide the role of the media in heaping misery on this poor family by trying to apportion blame on others.
He has quite the CV, with jobs at The News of the World, The Sun, Daily Mail, & seems to be proud to be a conspiracy theorist.
He has a long, and distinctly undistinguished, history.
Creator of stories via phone hacking at the News of the World. Hysterical false HIV stories demonising the gay community-even though he is gay himself The person who forced Prince Harry into "Megxit"
Now the News of the World is no more, combines jobs at MailOnline and GB News.
I spent most of my working life in sales, so targets were a way of life.
The police are judged on their results. In this case they completely failed. Despite all the resources at their disposal. A member of the public found the body. The police didnt. The police were looking for dispersal orders to keep the public away from the scene. Had they been successful in this, the family may have been still waiting for news.
I dont consider myself an expert on anything, particularly not missing people, but looking at ariel footage of the river, I did wonder how it had taken more than 3 weeks to not find the body, assuming that she had gone into it. To be fair to the police, this was their best guess from day one. Although I do appreciate that there is probably much more involved that I dont have a clue about.
All I got from their last press conference was a list of resources in play, and their wish to blame members of the of the public, and social media for interfering with the investigation, and making life more difficult for them. I didnt know there was such a thing as an underwater drone.
Going back to the resources. I am sure that there will be many families across the country that will be wondering why a similar amount of effort has not been put into finding their missing loved one. What could you say to them?
The disclosure regarding her vulnerabilities was a massive mistake. This occurred at a time when they werent aware of the outcome. So to disclose that she had a drink problem, had difficulties surrounding the menopause, and that the police had paid her a recent visit accompanied by a health professional, was a huge error. The police were still working on three scenarios, the river, third party involvement, or she had done a bunk. Now if she had done a bunk, to get a break, and get her head together, the fact that the police had announced to the world that she had a drink problem, was hardly likely to be an encouragement to return home.
As far as the health professional is concerned, it will be interesting to find out what action was taken, if any. Sadly, whatever this may have been, it obviously wasnt successful.
The press conference made me think of a football manager whose team had just been relegated, announcing to the press and the public, that the team had spent many hours in training, had the best coaches, practiced set pieces until the cows came home, the money the club had spent on players, and the work done on their pitch. All irrelevant, the club was relegated, and he was getting fired very soon.
I am certain that we will be assured that lessons will be learned. This is usually the case, until the next time.
Nicola Bulley: Aerial shots show St Michael's on Wyre as search continues near area
Some of your ideas on how terrible the police and NHS are could be in a Conspiracy thread
I think you are completely missing the point.
In their last press conference the police claimed to be flat out searching the river for the body. They listed the resources they had devoted to this purpose. This included a massive number of officers, divers, boats, overhead drones underwater drones, helicopters, outside contractors, etc etc. The had initially faced some criticism for concentrating their efforts on the river. The videos above show that the River Wyre is not The Thames. They tried to ban members of the public from the area. Yet with all this going on, a member of the public who was walking a dog, some distance from the river was able to spot the body.
Now I am not necessarily criticising the police for this, but it is ironic that if it was up to the them, the member of the public wouldnt have been there. Although from my position of complete ignorance, I think that if I was a member of the investigation team, I would have felt embarrassed by the fact that all the police efforts were in vain, and that the body had been stumbled over by a member of the public.
What I am criticising them for is disclosing her vulnerabilities. I am hardly alone in this.
I dont think the officer in charge needed to point out that she was unable to question the dog.
I was also making the point that the amount of effort, and resources put into this particular case, were far in excess of a normal missing person case.
As far as the NHS is concerned, I have a high regard for the front line staff, but believe the management is very poor. This has been proved by the blunders they make on a regular basis, some of which go on for many years, without being addressed.
Some of your ideas on how terrible the police and NHS are could be in a Conspiracy thread
With all due respect your expert quotes 2 random cases. They fell into different rivers. In both cases the point that they fell in was not known. Who knows what effort, and resources were put into either case. My view is that it is a silly article.
He even solves the problem. Crucially, Mr Faulding says sonar would never be used to search reeds by the side of a river because it would not penetrate them.
Such a search would have to be manual riverbank and wading search.
If the equipment you are using doesnt penetrate reeds you wouldnt have to be a brain surgeon to decide to search any reed beds by wading through them.
If you just consider the facts. The police spent millions over 3 weeks and didnt find the body. Had they not searched at all, the result would have been the same. Which might have been what happened in the other 2 cases.
Sometimes, when I disagree with someone on a subject, it is not because I am "missing the point". Sometimes, I fully understand the point someone is trying to make. And still disagree with it.
In an ideal World, I agree the police should not have to disclose certain vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, the World is not ideal.
Traditionally, the Police in these sorts of situations, just say the person is "vulnerable", and leave it at that. They have to say someone in this position is vulnerable-simply because it alters the likelihood of various possibilities. So-for example-it decreases the chance that she had chosen to disappear to start a new life, and increases the chance that she had committed suicide.
The difficulty is that social media has distorted the best way forward. Once people have started with their conspiracy theories, together with correct facts that would have been better not aired publicly, the Police are placed in an invidious position.
There are various phrases routinely used by the police which no longer provide a level of support. Simply because people dissect them, both in generality and in individual cases. For example, in murder cases:-
"Police are not looking for anyone else"="you can work out for yourself who did it" "The public should not be alarmed"="police sure it was gang/drug related"
I think it is a given that the default position would be to say little about vulnerabilities. But-what are the police to do in cases like this? The 2 conspiracy theories going round seemed to be that 1. The family were desperately skint and 2. That she had mental health problems.
The police cannot just ignore the rumours that are already there, because people treat silence as confirmation. Cannot just say 1 above is irrelevant without people doubling down on 2 above.
Once the distressing stuff is already out there, the police have to weigh up the advantages of a fuller disclosure against a now reduced harm of confirming some rumours that are already swirling about.
The faintly ridiculous bit is that the Media, who are to blame for both publicising and inviting speculation on facts the police would rather were not disclosed, feel able to blame the Police for their changed response due to the actions of the Media themselves.
"Yet with all this going on, a member of the public who was walking a dog, some distance from the river was able to spot the body."
Worth noting that it does not necessarily follow that the body was in that spot & visible for the 3 weeks. A body immersed in water initially sinks to the bottom, then floats to the surface a few weeks later due to putrefaction. So I don't think it necessarily implies that the Police "missed" it" all that time.
"Yet with all this going on, a member of the public who was walking a dog, some distance from the river was able to spot the body."
Worth noting that it does not necessarily follow that the body was in that spot & visible for the 3 weeks. A body immersed in water initially sinks to the bottom, then floats to the surface a few weeks later due to putrefaction. So I don't think it necessarily implies that the Police "missed" it" all that time.
No I was merely pointing out that despite the fact that they were flat out around the clock employing millions of officers, divers, boats, drones, airborne, and underwater, helicopters, etc, they failed to find the body. A dog walking member of the public did. Without any assistance underwater, or otherwise.
It is interesting to note that 170,000 people go missing in the UK every year. How many get that level of investigation? I would suggest it would not be many.
"No I was merely pointing out that despite the fact that they were flat out around the clock employing millions of officers, divers, boats, drones, airborne, and underwater, helicopters, etc, they failed to find the body. A dog walking member of the public did. Without any assistance underwater, or otherwise."
...perhaps because the body only floated to the surface on the day it was found. by which time the intensive police search has been scaled sown/ended, as it should. Taking the emotion out of it, the Police can & should only devote so much resource to the search for a Missing Person. As you note, 170,000 people go missing annually, there's only so much the Police can do. One could argue that, perhaps due to media pressure, rather more money & resource was allocated to this case that could reasonably be expected, sad though it is. Don't think if you or I suddenly went AWOL they'd spend long looking for us. 20 minutes tops, I'd suggest...
"No I was merely pointing out that despite the fact that they were flat out around the clock employing millions of officers, divers, boats, drones, airborne, and underwater, helicopters, etc, they failed to find the body. A dog walking member of the public did. Without any assistance underwater, or otherwise."
...perhaps because the body only floated to the surface on the day it was found. by which time the intensive police search has been scaled sown/ended, as it should. Taking the emotion out of it, the Police can & should only devote so much resource to the search for a Missing Person. As you note, 170,000 people go missing annually, there's only so much the Police can do. One could argue that, perhaps due to media pressure, rather more money & resource was allocated to this case that could reasonably be expected, sad though it is. Don't think if you or I suddenly went AWOL they'd spend long looking for us. 20 minutes tops, I'd suggest...
If that. My point really is that the police had one objective in this case, which was to find the body. The body turned up just over 3 weeks later. Found by a dog walker. I saw the coverage most days, as we were swamped with it. Sky News were reporting from the scene, very soon after her disappearance. The River Wyre wasnt very wide, nor fast flowing. They reported that it was only 2 to 3 feet deep near the banks. The body was found around one mile from her point of entry. There was a claim in the article that @Essexphil posted that the equipment being used in the search would not penetrate reeds. The solution was that the reeds would require a manual search. This would require someone to wade through them, in 2 to 3 feet of water. Surely the SIO was aware of this. Surely a bit of wading could have been organised at some time during the 3 weeks. They were able to pinpoint where she entered the river. They had access to experts for just about everything, including tides, and rivers.
I just find it incredible that they were unable to find the body within 3 weeks, despite all the resources they had available, and the fact that it was within a mile of her entry point.
As you have said I am not an expert, and I dont have a clue what might have happened during the period that she was missing.
I was being critical of the police for some of the other aspects of the investigation. Although, had I been a senior officer involved in this I would certainly feel embarrassed by the result. I certainly wouldnt be keen to be putting forward the "we didnt find the body because the sonar cant penetrate reeds" excuse.
If you were forced to judge the success or failure of the investigation, I cant see that it could be considered as anything but abject failure. They mounted a huge operation. I am not going to list everything again. They probably spent millions. However the end result was exactly the same as if they hadnt bothered lifting a finger.
I am sure lessons will be learnt. Until the next time.
Sometimes, when I disagree with someone on a subject, it is not because I am "missing the point". Sometimes, I fully understand the point someone is trying to make. And still disagree with it.
In an ideal World, I agree the police should not have to disclose certain vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, the World is not ideal.
Traditionally, the Police in these sorts of situations, just say the person is "vulnerable", and leave it at that. They have to say someone in this position is vulnerable-simply because it alters the likelihood of various possibilities. So-for example-it decreases the chance that she had chosen to disappear to start a new life, and increases the chance that she had committed suicide.
The difficulty is that social media has distorted the best way forward. Once people have started with their conspiracy theories, together with correct facts that would have been better not aired publicly, the Police are placed in an invidious position.
There are various phrases routinely used by the police which no longer provide a level of support. Simply because people dissect them, both in generality and in individual cases. For example, in murder cases:-
"Police are not looking for anyone else"="you can work out for yourself who did it" "The public should not be alarmed"="police sure it was gang/drug related"
I think it is a given that the default position would be to say little about vulnerabilities. But-what are the police to do in cases like this? The 2 conspiracy theories going round seemed to be that 1. The family were desperately skint and 2. That she had mental health problems.
The police cannot just ignore the rumours that are already there, because people treat silence as confirmation. Cannot just say 1 above is irrelevant without people doubling down on 2 above.
Once the distressing stuff is already out there, the police have to weigh up the advantages of a fuller disclosure against a now reduced harm of confirming some rumours that are already swirling about.
The faintly ridiculous bit is that the Media, who are to blame for both publicising and inviting speculation on facts the police would rather were not disclosed, feel able to blame the Police for their changed response due to the actions of the Media themselves.
I agree with bits of that. However I will not be swayed on my opinion that the disclosure by the police regarding her vulnerabilities was a huge mistake. They were dealing with a missing person at the time. She was a missing person with mental health issues. If she was suicidal then announcing that she had a drink problem to the whole world, could have tipped her over the edge. There was no need of it. It didnt move the investigation forward.
I dont see why they would use the same excuse that MPs use every day of the week. They say that they are not going to comment until the investigation is concluded. The press just accept this.
Comments
He has quite the CV, with jobs at The News of the World, The Sun, Daily Mail, & seems to be proud to be a conspiracy theorist.
Creator of stories via phone hacking at the News of the World.
Hysterical false HIV stories demonising the gay community-even though he is gay himself
The person who forced Prince Harry into "Megxit"
Now the News of the World is no more, combines jobs at MailOnline and GB News.
"MailOnline and GB News".
Says it all.
I spent most of my working life in sales, so targets were a way of life.
The police are judged on their results.
In this case they completely failed.
Despite all the resources at their disposal.
A member of the public found the body.
The police didnt.
The police were looking for dispersal orders to keep the public away from the scene.
Had they been successful in this, the family may have been still waiting for news.
I dont consider myself an expert on anything, particularly not missing people, but looking at ariel footage of the river, I did wonder how it had taken more than 3 weeks to not find the body, assuming that she had gone into it.
To be fair to the police, this was their best guess from day one.
Although I do appreciate that there is probably much more involved that I dont have a clue about.
All I got from their last press conference was a list of resources in play, and their wish to blame members of the of the public, and social media for interfering with the investigation, and making life more difficult for them.
I didnt know there was such a thing as an underwater drone.
Going back to the resources.
I am sure that there will be many families across the country that will be wondering why a similar amount of effort has not been put into finding their missing loved one.
What could you say to them?
The disclosure regarding her vulnerabilities was a massive mistake.
This occurred at a time when they werent aware of the outcome.
So to disclose that she had a drink problem, had difficulties surrounding the menopause, and that the police had paid her a recent visit accompanied by a health professional, was a huge error.
The police were still working on three scenarios, the river, third party involvement, or she had done a bunk.
Now if she had done a bunk, to get a break, and get her head together, the fact that the police had announced to the world that she had a drink problem, was hardly likely to be an encouragement to return home.
As far as the health professional is concerned, it will be interesting to find out what action was taken, if any.
Sadly, whatever this may have been, it obviously wasnt successful.
The press conference made me think of a football manager whose team had just been relegated, announcing to the press and the public, that the team had spent many hours in training, had the best coaches, practiced set pieces until the cows came home, the money the club had spent on players, and the work done on their pitch.
All irrelevant, the club was relegated, and he was getting fired very soon.
I am certain that we will be assured that lessons will be learned.
This is usually the case, until the next time.
Nicola Bulley: Aerial shots show St Michael's on Wyre as search continues near area
Nicola Bulley: Passerby points out spot where body was found
Drone footage River wyre
@HAYSIE
"I didnt know there was such a thing as an underwater drone."
Similar in many respects to aerial drones, except that the underwater versions are "tethered".
However, I do tend to listen to people who are. For example:-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64712383
Some of your ideas on how terrible the police and NHS are could be in a Conspiracy thread
In their last press conference the police claimed to be flat out searching the river for the body.
They listed the resources they had devoted to this purpose.
This included a massive number of officers, divers, boats, overhead drones underwater drones, helicopters, outside contractors, etc etc.
The had initially faced some criticism for concentrating their efforts on the river.
The videos above show that the River Wyre is not The Thames.
They tried to ban members of the public from the area.
Yet with all this going on, a member of the public who was walking a dog, some distance from the river was able to spot the body.
Now I am not necessarily criticising the police for this, but it is ironic that if it was up to the them, the member of the public wouldnt have been there.
Although from my position of complete ignorance, I think that if I was a member of the investigation team, I would have felt embarrassed by the fact that all the police efforts were in vain, and that the body had been stumbled over by a member of the public.
What I am criticising them for is disclosing her vulnerabilities.
I am hardly alone in this.
I dont think the officer in charge needed to point out that she was unable to question the dog.
I was also making the point that the amount of effort, and resources put into this particular case, were far in excess of a normal missing person case.
As far as the NHS is concerned, I have a high regard for the front line staff, but believe the management is very poor.
This has been proved by the blunders they make on a regular basis, some of which go on for many years, without being addressed.
Nicola Bulley: Police press conference in full
They fell into different rivers.
In both cases the point that they fell in was not known.
Who knows what effort, and resources were put into either case.
My view is that it is a silly article.
He even solves the problem.
Crucially, Mr Faulding says sonar would never be used to search reeds by the side of a river because it would not penetrate them.
Such a search would have to be manual riverbank and wading search.
If the equipment you are using doesnt penetrate reeds you wouldnt have to be a brain surgeon to decide to search any reed beds by wading through them.
If you just consider the facts.
The police spent millions over 3 weeks and didnt find the body.
Had they not searched at all, the result would have been the same.
Which might have been what happened in the other 2 cases.
In an ideal World, I agree the police should not have to disclose certain vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, the World is not ideal.
Traditionally, the Police in these sorts of situations, just say the person is "vulnerable", and leave it at that. They have to say someone in this position is vulnerable-simply because it alters the likelihood of various possibilities. So-for example-it decreases the chance that she had chosen to disappear to start a new life, and increases the chance that she had committed suicide.
The difficulty is that social media has distorted the best way forward. Once people have started with their conspiracy theories, together with correct facts that would have been better not aired publicly, the Police are placed in an invidious position.
There are various phrases routinely used by the police which no longer provide a level of support. Simply because people dissect them, both in generality and in individual cases. For example, in murder cases:-
"Police are not looking for anyone else"="you can work out for yourself who did it"
"The public should not be alarmed"="police sure it was gang/drug related"
I think it is a given that the default position would be to say little about vulnerabilities. But-what are the police to do in cases like this? The 2 conspiracy theories going round seemed to be that 1. The family were desperately skint and 2. That she had mental health problems.
The police cannot just ignore the rumours that are already there, because people treat silence as confirmation. Cannot just say 1 above is irrelevant without people doubling down on 2 above.
Once the distressing stuff is already out there, the police have to weigh up the advantages of a fuller disclosure against a now reduced harm of confirming some rumours that are already swirling about.
The faintly ridiculous bit is that the Media, who are to blame for both publicising and inviting speculation on facts the police would rather were not disclosed, feel able to blame the Police for their changed response due to the actions of the Media themselves.
@HAYSIE
"Yet with all this going on, a member of the public who was walking a dog, some distance from the river was able to spot the body."
Worth noting that it does not necessarily follow that the body was in that spot & visible for the 3 weeks. A body immersed in water initially sinks to the bottom, then floats to the surface a few weeks later due to putrefaction. So I don't think it necessarily implies that the Police "missed" it" all that time.
A dog walking member of the public did.
Without any assistance underwater, or otherwise.
It is interesting to note that 170,000 people go missing in the UK every year.
How many get that level of investigation?
I would suggest it would not be many.
"No I was merely pointing out that despite the fact that they were flat out around the clock employing millions of officers, divers, boats, drones, airborne, and underwater, helicopters, etc, they failed to find the body.
A dog walking member of the public did.
Without any assistance underwater, or otherwise."
...perhaps because the body only floated to the surface on the day it was found. by which time the intensive police search has been scaled sown/ended, as it should. Taking the emotion out of it, the Police can & should only devote so much resource to the search for a Missing Person. As you note, 170,000 people go missing annually, there's only so much the Police can do. One could argue that, perhaps due to media pressure, rather more money & resource was allocated to this case that could reasonably be expected, sad though it is. Don't think if you or I suddenly went AWOL they'd spend long looking for us. 20 minutes tops, I'd suggest...
My point really is that the police had one objective in this case, which was to find the body.
The body turned up just over 3 weeks later.
Found by a dog walker.
I saw the coverage most days, as we were swamped with it.
Sky News were reporting from the scene, very soon after her disappearance.
The River Wyre wasnt very wide, nor fast flowing.
They reported that it was only 2 to 3 feet deep near the banks.
The body was found around one mile from her point of entry.
There was a claim in the article that @Essexphil posted that the equipment being used in the search would not penetrate reeds.
The solution was that the reeds would require a manual search.
This would require someone to wade through them, in 2 to 3 feet of water.
Surely the SIO was aware of this.
Surely a bit of wading could have been organised at some time during the 3 weeks.
They were able to pinpoint where she entered the river.
They had access to experts for just about everything, including tides, and rivers.
I just find it incredible that they were unable to find the body within 3 weeks, despite all the resources they had available, and the fact that it was within a mile of her entry point.
As you have said I am not an expert, and I dont have a clue what might have happened during the period that she was missing.
I was being critical of the police for some of the other aspects of the investigation.
Although, had I been a senior officer involved in this I would certainly feel embarrassed by the result.
I certainly wouldnt be keen to be putting forward the "we didnt find the body because the sonar cant penetrate reeds" excuse.
If you were forced to judge the success or failure of the investigation, I cant see that it could be considered as anything but abject failure.
They mounted a huge operation.
I am not going to list everything again.
They probably spent millions.
However the end result was exactly the same as if they hadnt bothered lifting a finger.
I am sure lessons will be learnt.
Until the next time.
However I will not be swayed on my opinion that the disclosure by the police regarding her vulnerabilities was a huge mistake.
They were dealing with a missing person at the time.
She was a missing person with mental health issues.
If she was suicidal then announcing that she had a drink problem to the whole world, could have tipped her over the edge.
There was no need of it.
It didnt move the investigation forward.
I dont see why they would use the same excuse that MPs use every day of the week.
They say that they are not going to comment until the investigation is concluded.
The press just accept this.