WHEN Nicola Bulley went missing during a dog walk in January last year, the ensuing online hysteria was unprecedented as “amateur sleuths” posted wild theories as clickbait.
Her partner Paul Ansell recently described it as a “monster” that got out of control and, once it transpired that she’d accidentally drowned, one hoped that lessons would be learned.
But now mother-of-one Victoria Taylor has gone missing and here we go again.
On top of their anguish at her disappearance in Malton, North Yorks, her poor family have had to deal with amateur sleuths trying to cash in on the search for her.
Psychics, mediums and online sleuths have plagued a Facebook support group set up by 34-year-old Victoria’s sisters and friends — asking for money to help find her.
And just like Paul, who received direct messages from people he didn’t know saying “horrendous things”, Victoria’s fiancé Matthew Williams is also facing un-substantiated claims about the state of their relationship and accusing him of being involved in her disappearance.
One commented: “It’s sad to see people pointing the finger at her partner. It’s cruel, as he is going through enough already without people doing that.”
The wild speculation over Victoria’s disappearance on Monday last week is so bad that her childhood friend and neighbour Charlotte Cundill has felt compelled to plead for it to stop.
“We need facts, and facts only, right now,” she says. “Mediums and psychics are not welcome.”
The last confirmed sighting of Victoria, a care home nurse, is believed to be at 11.35am when CCTV shows her walking past a BP garage towards the local river Derwent where her backpack and camouflage baseball cap were later found.
Yet conspiracy theorists are already suggesting that the woman on the footage isn’t her. Seriously?
North Yorkshire Police have a hard enough job finding her without armchair “detectives” throwing doubt on such a crucial piece of information.
Divers are currently using sonar equipment to search the river, but the police force says it remains “open-minded” about her disappearance and that there’s currently “no information to suggest any form of third-party involvement” in her disappearance.
In cases such as those of Nicola, Victoria or anyone else who mysteriously goes missing or comes to harm, the role of the mainstream media is vital in helping to publicise the facts in the hope that it prompts a vital witness to come forward.
So, as the latest search enters its second week, the facts so far are these:
She was last seen at the family home at 9am and hasn’t made contact with her loved ones since.
Just over two hours later, she was caught on camera walking past the BP garage towards the river, where some of her belongings were found on the bank.
At 11.53am she was reportedly spotted at the local bus station.
The walk between the garage and the bus station is eight minutes, which leaves a ten-minute window that’s unexplained.
And that’s it so far. Any speculation is deeply unhelpful to the police officers who have a duty to rule out all lines of inquiry as well as investigate promising leads.
At least this time, as far as I know, local villagers haven’t had to employ a private security firm to keep “online sleuths” from searching their gardens and outbuildings as well as filming on and around the park bench where Nicola left her phone.
So perhaps that’s progress. But the online speculation and blaming continues apace.
And if you click on it and boost the followers of these armchair detectives, then you’re part of the problem.
BROOKLYN BECKHAM has just launched his new Cloud23 organic hot sauce.
Here he is in PR mode, pushing wife Nicola Peltz in a trolley around a Whole Foods store in West London.
Brooklyn, 25, told his online followers that there’s a “hole in the market with luxury condiments, especially for a really good price”.
Cripes. Good luck to him, but anyone who thinks £14.99 a bottle is a good price to your average punter is in Cloud23 cuckoo land.
JOAN BAKEWELL, now 91, says she regrets being labelled as the “thinking man’s crumpet” by the late comedy writer Frank Muir.
You can see her point, although it’s one of the less offensive, reductive phrases deployed against women through the ages to assess their worth solely through the prism of how attractive, or otherwise, men find them.
This tired old trope was turned on its head in a rerun of the excellent TV series Frasier I saw last week, when Niles suggests his brother is only interested in a new love interest for her brains.
Frasier retorts: “How could you think I’d be so shallow?”
A POISON pen letter scandal is rocking the quiet village of Shiptonthorpe in East Yorkshire where residents have received nasty missives from an anonymous sender.
It started in November 2022 when a distressed resident got a letter accusing her of being “a loose woman”.
Oh come on. We’re not that bad.
TOWIE star Gemma Collins called an ambulance after being stung on the tongue by a wasp whilst on holiday in Venice.
She said afterwards: “Wasp is the powerful female warrior and shamanic healer, prompting us to take a good look at our lives and ask if we are fighting the good fight.
“If you are stung by a wasp, it’s her way of saying, ‘Wake up! Do your spiritual work’.”
Well, stinging Gemma in the mouth is certainly the wasp’s way of saying something.
ISABELLE PEPIN was fined £500 for putting an Ikea cabinet outside her house for someone to take for free.
The item was snapped up, but four days later an official at Bournemouth Council said she was being done for fly-tipping.
Why? We are constantly urged to recycle and, rather than clog up landfill with a perfectly good item of furniture, she ensured it got a new lease of life with someone else.
Anonymous fly-tippers dumping unsightly rubbish is indeed a problem that needs tackling, but they often seem to get away with it.
Isabelle placed her item outside her own house (thereby making no secret of it) and her successful recycling effort has seen her hit with a hefty fine.
Go figure.
RUSSIAN crook Maksim Yakubets heads a cyber fraud outfit that, according to the National Crime Agency, has cheated Brits out of hundreds of millions of pounds.
Over the past decade, he and other members of his family stand accused of hacking the bank accounts of thousands of people and robbing them of their life savings, whilst also carrying out espionage missions that target Nato countries on behalf of the Russian state.
Thanks to his ill-gotten gains, Maksim is said to drive around in supercars, spent £250k on his wedding, and owns tiger and lion cubs.
As villains go, he makes Bond’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld look like the pussycat he’s so fond of stroking.
QUESTION: Given that Sue Gray’s son Liam Conlon – a brand new MP – is the latest to be revealed as receiving £1,660 worth of free Taylor Swift tickets…it might be quicker to ask, is there anyone among the Labour ranks who didn’t go to her recent concerts?
STAMP prices have risen from £1.35 to £1.65 in time for the festive season.
Soon it’ll be cheaper to get a first-class train to hand-deliver Aunty Gladys her Christmas card.
TORY heavyweight Mel Stride has backed James Cleverly in the leadership contest because he thinks he will “take the fight to Labour”.
Right now, it seems that Labour are doing a fine job of self-flagellation.
MIRANDA star Sarah Hadland has emerged as this year’s Strictly Come Dancing ‘dark horse’, with bookies’ already touting her to win.
The actress, 53, is partnered up with last year’s champ, Vito Coppola, and the pair of them have been wowing on the dancefloor.
Sarah has enjoyed an incredible a career as an actress and is best known for BBC One‘s hit show Miranda, and the ITV sitcom The Job Lot.
But now she is wowing on the Strictly dancefloor, with both the judges and viewers at home singing her praises.
Bookies are now saying she is the “dark horse” who is set to run away with the Glitterball this series.
Betting shops are giving Sarah odds of 12/1 to win the show, after fans started to bet “thousand of pounds” on her to win.
It comes as the actress recently admitted to The Sun she “fancied” her pro-dance partner Vito the moment she clapped eyes on him.
When we asked her, she said: “What a ridiculous question to ask me.
“Yes, I fancied him. I’m alive, aren’t I?
“If you’re female and have a heartbeat, how could he NOT be anybody’s type?
“The paso doble we’re doing this week is very serious and sensual, and when we started learning it I was very, very giggly.
“I kept the eye to camera because there’s a lot of, I’m going to call ‘tuppence to thigh’.
“I’m being bold but I can because I’m talking to The Sun.
“There’s a lot of groin to thigh, and I have to look deep into his eyes — which make it ten times worse.”
Sarah said: “As an actor, you do get to be very up close with people, but with Strictly it’s another level.
“You have to be so close.
“I’m going to be honest, though — it’s not hard.
“Or rather, should we say, it’s not difficult. Let’s go with that.
“I’ve been a superfan of Strictly since it began. It’s incredible — everything, the costume . . . then Vito is the cherry on the cake!”
When Sarah was first announced as the Strictly, it was revealed that she had trained as a ballet dancer.
Some fans said this gave her an “unfair advantage” on the dancefloor.
It came after her friend and EastEnders star Alex Kingston said in 2019:
“Sarah Hadland and I talked about how much we’d like to do Strictly Come Dancing.
“Then I discovered that she’s actually a trained ballet dancer.
“‘Hang on a minute! That’s not fair!’ So, I can’t do it on a season when she is on it!
“It’s also a massive commitment and, as an actor, you never know whether you’re going to be available for that time or whether it means cutting out the possibility of an acting job.”
Here's who is matched with who this series...
Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell
Jamie Borthwick and Michelle Tsiakkas
JB Gill and Amy Dowden MBE
Montell Douglas and Johannes Radebe
Nick Knowles and Luba Mushtuk
Paul Merson and Karen Hauer
Pete Wicks and Jowita Przystał
Punam Krishan and Gorka Márquez
Tasha Ghouri and Aljaž Škorjanec
Tom Dean MBE and Nadiya Bychkova
Toyah Willcox and Neil Jones
Sam Quek MBE and Nikita Kuzmin
Sarah Hadland and Vito Coppola
Shayne Ward and Nancy Xu
Wynne Evans and Katya Jones
THE Repair Shop’s Jay Blades has been dropped from the show’s tour.
Blades, 54, was ousted from his role on the BBC programme after he was charged with coercive and controlling behaviour towards his wife.
Now he has been quietly dropped from the Bafta-winning series’ theatre gigs, Secrets from the Barn, and ditched from its promo material.
Jay’s career is in limbo following the allegations concerning his estranged wife Lisa Zbozen, 43.
The BBC looks set to axe the Christmas special of The Repair Shop.
Channel 5 has shelved documentary series A Country House Through Time.
And Channel 4 has said there will be no sequel to The Odd Couple, Blades’ travel show with Dame Judi Dench.
Blades has presented The Repair Shop for seven years.
His estranged wife posted a message on Instagram on May 2 saying their 18-month marriage had ended.
West Mercia Police launched an investigation a day later.
He is due at Worcester crown court on Friday.
VIAGRA is now Britain’s biggest knock-off drug with counterfeits worth more than £6.2million seized last year.
Even more of the fake little blue pills were impounded than copies of addictive painkillers morphine and tramadol.
Health chiefs warn dodgy online chemists are selling huge quantities of erectile dysfunction medicines.
Most are imported from India and South East Asia without a licence.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said investigators and police last year confiscated 2.6million doses of unlicensed sildenafil, sold under the name Viagra, worth £6.2million.
They also found 507,000 doses of dodgy tadalafil, brand name Cialis, worth £1.2million.
Andy Morling, head of enforcement at the MHRA, said: “Erectile dysfunction drugs are available over the counter now but there’s still an illegal trade. The branded products are more expensive to buy and I think there is still an embarrassment factor.”
Packs sold in shops and pharmacists go through strict quality control to make sure they are safe and effective.
Mr Morling added: “Online is the new front line — this is almost exclusively an online trade.
“There are tens of thousands of websites globally and many of them sell in sterling and ship to the UK.”
TV pharmacist Thorrun Govind said: “Fake medicines may not contain any of the active ingredients and may contain ingredients which are damaging to your health. Always buy medication from a registered pharmacy.”
The MHRA seized 15.5million illegal medicine doses in 2023, worth £30million.
After erection pills, the most common were benzodiazepine painkillers and sedatives
A MUM is so scared of spiders she ordered an Uber so the driver could get one out of her house.
Zoe Rebecca, 28, has also offered strangers wine in return for lifting the creepy crawlies from her property.
She says her terror comes from growing up in a spider-infested home where they would crawl on her food and in her bed.
So when she spotted one in her house recently and no pals were available to help, she ordered an Uber to take her shopping.
Zoe said: “I booked it out of sheer panic and asked it to take me to the local supermarket.
“But when he got here, I told him I didn’t need to go shopping and instead wanted him to get rid of a spider. He thought I was joking but agreed to do it when he realised I was serious. He was a legend.”
Nurse Zoe, of Newcastle, paid him his fare and gave him a tip but her arachnophobia remains.
She added: “You always hear, ‘They are more scared of you than you are of them’, but that’s not true in my case.
“Last week there was a giant spider in my bathroom and no one was around so I posted on Facebook to ask for help and offered them a bottle of wine.
“I had to wait 16 minutes for the post to be approved on my local page and considered calling an Uber while I was waiting.
“I was with my ex for ten years and he got all the spiders.
“My biggest mistake in leaving him was not having anyone to catch spiders anymore — I’ll have to download Tinder.”
علاج الشرخ بالفازلين، تبحث الكثير من الأمهات عن علاج الشرخ بطريقة طبيعية دون تدخل جراحي عند الأطفال. كما أن هناك العديد من الطرق الطبيعية التي يمكنك استخدامها لعلاج التشققات، ومنها...
ظهرت المقالة تجربتي في علاج الشرخ بالفازلين للاطفال بخطوات بسيطة في المنزل أولاً على سعودي 24.