Dive expert Peter Faulding from Sussex is helping to find Nicola Bulley

Peter Faulding, head of private underwater company Specialist Group International, flew to St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire yesterday to help police locate the missing Nicola Bulley.

The mother of two, 45, went missing on Friday January 27 while walking her dog near the River Wyre.

Her disappearance has sparked national coverage as the search enters its 11th day.

Nicola Bulley went missing on January 27th (Image: Lancashire Police)

Mr Faulding and his team have been scanning the river with sonar, which sends sound waves down the riverbed to create an image of it.

He said Monday after scanning “three or four miles” of the river until dark, there was “no sign of Nicola.”

Mr Faulding told Talk TV last night his “gut feeling” was that Ms Bulley was not in the flow.

Peter Faulding, CEO of private underwater search and recovery company Specialist Group International (SGI), in St Michael’s on Wyre (Image: PA)

Speaking to Newsquest’s Talking True Crime podcast, he said: “The river moves quite slowly, it’s shallow in places and deep in places. It will be a bit of a challenge with the sonar and moving the boat in parts of it.

“We will focus on the deeper areas.

“What we generally find in normal benign water when people are going down, they’re generally not far from where they went down.

“Let’s hope Nicola isn’t there and alive somewhere, but if she’s in there I’m absolutely confident we’ll find her.

“We would then deploy a diver to figure out what this anomaly is. Generally a body would appear as a body, I can see it very clearly. Unfortunately, we deal with a lot of drownings every summer.

“We can find them very quickly with the sonar.”

Teams with sonar in the River Wyre (Image: PA)

Lancashire Police said: “Our working hypothesis remains that for some reason Nicola unfortunately fell into the river, but we remain open-minded and continue to conduct a large body of inquiries.”

Ms Bulley’s phone, still connected to a team call for her job as a mortgage advisor, was found on a bench on a steep riverbank overlooking the water, along with her dog’s leash and harness on the floor.