HAS SOMEONE GOT OUR NICOLA?

Missing mother's parents fear abduction after dog was found 'bone dry'

- Chris Riches and Hollie Bone

THE parents of mother-of-two Nicola Bulley who vanished while walking her dog by a river fear “somebody has her”.

As an intensive search entered its sixth day, they vowed to “never stop looking” for their daughter.

Nicola’s father Ernest, 73, said: “We just dread to think we will never see her again.”

Her spaniel Willow was “agitated” when found alone, close to where the 45-year-old was last seen. But the dog was “bone dry”, so had not been in the water.

There had been fears that mortgage adviser Nicola had slipped into the Wyre near her home in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancs, last Friday morning – but her parents said there was no sign of a slip and their greatest fear is that she has been abducted.

Police, water rescue specialists plus dozens of relatives, friends and locals scoured the countryside as divers checked the icy river and colleagues used a remote mini-submarine to examine the river bed.

Others searched the grounds of an abandoned house.

Willow was discovered close to a bench where Nicola’s phone was found, still dialled into a business call.

One local said: “I know the woman who found Willow. She said the dog was near the river bank and close to the bench. Willow was bone dry and so hadn’t been into the water but the dog was in an agitated state.”

Ernest and his wife Dot, 72, said Nicola had just secured another client and was excited about finding them a mortgage deal. Freight transport firm boss Ernest said: “Her mind was great. We picked the children up the Thursday before she went missing, as we do every Thursday.