MP and friends urge people to stop 'hampering' investigation into missing Nicola Bulley

An MP has joined friends of missing mother-of-two Nicola Bulley and urged members of the public to stop speculating over her disappearance.

Conservative former minister Paul Maynard told the Commons that gossip and people turning up at St Michael's on Wyre is "hampering" the investigation.

Speaking during Home Office questions, the MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys said: "Would the minister join me in imploring people to avoid the speculation, and the gossip, and the guesswork that has been going on, people descending upon St Michael's on Wyre?

"It's actually hampering this investigation and causing inordinate distress to Nicola's family."

Home Office minister Chris Philp agreed, adding: "It's important that the public respect the family's need for privacy at what is obviously an extremely difficult, upsetting and unimaginably distressing time. It's important they let the police get on with their work, and the local authority as well.

"If anyone has any information at all, however minor or innocuous it may seem to them, please do come forward and share it with the local police, but anything at all could help them get to the bottom of this."

Heather Gibbons, who has known Nicola for more than ten years, says online speculation has not been helping and said the 'focus needs to be on facts and evidence’.

It comes as new images have been released of Ms Bulley from the day she disappeared.

A private underwater rescue team has now joined the police in the search for the mother.