Dog walker seen on same route just minutes after Nicola Bulley reveals women are scared to go out in village

THE dog walker seen on the same route just minutes after Nicola Bulley went missing has revealed that women are now scared to go out in the village.

Nicola, 45, disappeared a week ago while walking her dog along the River Wyre in Lancashire.

Cops had issued a CCTV image of a woman in red they wished to speak to who was seen in the area walking a small white dog.

The woman - identified as 67-year-old Christine Bowman - was seen at around 8.48am on Allotment Lane, close to where Nicola was last spotted.

Cops believed Ms Bowman may have been one of the last people to see the mum before her disappearance last Friday morning.

But after Ms Bowman, a retired teacher, was traced following a police appeal, she said that she had already spoken to officers and "doesn't know anything".

And she added that local women are now wary of going out after Nicola went missing.

Ms Bowman said: "It has made local women fearful. If they have husbands or partners, they have been taking the dogs out instead."

Lancashire Police, who have launched a huge search operation, said that despite "unanswered questions", people should not "speculate or spread false rumours" about the disappearance.

Police search teams, divers and hundreds of volunteers have found no clues as to where she might be despite painstakingly searching the deep waters nearby.

Cops have even issued a 45-minute timeline of the mum of two’s last known movements in a desperate bid to track her down.

Nicola's distraught family made an emotional appeal for information yesterday, saying they would "do anything" to find her.

The family begged for help to find her and said that "people don't just vanish into thin air".

Ms Bowman - who police hoped could provide key pieces of information in the search for Ms Bulley - does not travel as far as the bench where the missing mother's phone and dog were found. 

Nicola, a mother-of-two and mortgage adviser, vanished while walking her dog after dropping off her daughters, aged six and nine, at school.

Her mobile phone and the lead and harness for her dog, springer spaniel Willow, were found on a bench close to the River Wyre in St Michael's on Wyre in the Lancashire countryside.

Nicola's distraught family made an emotional appeal for information yesterday, saying they would "do anything" to find her.

The family begged for help to find her and said that "people don't just vanish into thin air".

Nicola's husband, engineer Paul Ansell, her parents and sister have pleaded for information.

Her devastated sister Louise Cunningham says the family are “stuck in a nightmare” a week since she disappeared.

Her tearful father Ernie Bulley said Nicola's young daughters still believed it is "only a matter of time" before their mother comes home.

Nicola, 45, began her walk along the towpath to the River Wyre at 8.43am after dropping her two children off at school.

Police say around seven minutes later, a dog walker who knows Nicola, saw her walking around the lower field with her springer spaniel Willow.

The witness said their two dogs interacted briefly before she left Nicola via the river path.

At 8.53am, the mum sends an email to her boss at Exclusively Mortgages.

She then logged into a Teams call at 9.01am and was last seen around nine minutes later on the upper field walking Willow.

But by 9.35am she was gone. A dog walker found her phone on a bench and her brown springer spaniel Willow wandering free and raised the alarm.

Lancashire Police have said they do not believe any crime has been committed and are treating the incident as a missing person inquiry.