The mother of missing rugby star Levi Davis has sent a heartfelt message to the family of Nicola Bulley and said: ‘I understand your pain but don’t give up’.
Julie Davis today reached out to Ms Bulley’s partner, Paul Ansell, to offer him comfort and support as they both cling to the hope of seeing their loved ones again.
The cases have striking similarities. Both Ms Bulley and Mr Davis are feared to have fallen into water and their families have been frustrated by a lack of progress from the police and unhelpful speculation.
Ms Bulley was last seen walking her dog Willow shortly after dropping her two daughters off at school in the village of St Michael’s on Wyre in Lancashire on January 27.
Police believe the 45-year-old mortgage advisor accidentally fell into the River Wyre but a three-week detailed search of the water has uncovered no clues.
Julie Davis, the mother of missing rugby star Levi Davis, has sent a heartfelt message to the family of Nicola Bulley and said: ‘I understand your pain but don’t give up’
Nicola Bulley was last seen walking her dog Willow shortly after dropping her two daughters off at school in the village of St Michael’s on Wyre in Lancashire on January 27
Her family have questioned whether or not she ever did fall into the river and friends of Ms Bulley have hit out at Lancashire Police for revealing her secret battle with alcohol and an early menopause.
To make matters worse, armchair sleuths have posted a string of crackpot theories as to Ms Bulley’s disappearance online which have caused a lot of hurt to her loved ones.
Mr Davis – who also appeared on X Factor: Celebrity – was last seen leaving an Irish pub in the centre of Barcelona on October 29 last year. His family fear the 24-year-old winger may have drowned in the sea close to the city’s port.
They have been frustrated by a reluctance from police in the Catalan city to trawl through CCTV and to send in divers to search the water by the ferry terminal, where his passport was recovered a week after his disappearance.
Julie Davis today reached out to Ms Bulley’s partner, Paul Ansell, to offer him comfort and support as they both cling to the hope of seeing their loved ones again
Davis starred on Celebrity X Factor in 2019 alongside fellow rugby stars Ben Foden and Thom Evans in a singing group known as Try Star. He was also on E4’s Celebs Go Dating in 2020
Mr Davis’ relatives say they have been upset at speculation that he may have been kidnapped off the streets of Barcelona by a Somali gang over an unpaid £100,000 debt he ran up in London.
Mrs Davis told MailOnline: ‘I’ve been reading about Nicola’s case and there are a lot of similarities with Levi’s in terms of what we have had to cope with.
‘My message to her family, to her partner, to her little girls would be this “I know your pain but don’t give up”
‘At the moment hope is all we have. There’s so many questions and no answers. You don’t feel as though you can grieve when there is no body and so no confirmation that that person has gone.
‘I know with Levi it’s the not knowing that is the biggest cause of anguish. That’ll be the same with Nicola’s family.
MailOnline obtained CCTV footage showing Levi Davis leaving the Old Irish Pub on the bustling La Rambla street on October 29 at 10.05pm
Davis travelled on a ferry from Ibiza to Barcelona from where he went missing
‘On top of that they’ve had the same sort of frustrations with what the police are doing and what they’re not doing and what people – many of them armchair detectives – are saying happened without one shred of evidence.
‘That just makes it all so much worse and in Nicola’s case there’s young children to think about.
‘If I can be of any help to Nicola’s partner and family then all they need do is contact me and I’ll be happy to offer any assistance I can.’
Lancashire Constabulary were today facing a swirl of criticism of their handling of the Nicola Bulley case and have been warned that its extraordinary release of the mother-of-two’s private medical and personal information could derail further investigations.
Former victims’ commissioner for England and Wales Dame Vera Baird, told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘This is the biggest error that I have seen for quite a long time.
‘It’s going to just, you know, very sadly, to undermine trust in the police yet further.
‘It is a dreadful error to put this in the public domain for absolutely nothing and I’m afraid I think it’s as sexist as it comes.
‘Would we have had police officers saying, you know, if it was Nicholas, he’s been unfortunately tied down with alcohol because he’s been suffering from erectile dysfunction for the last few weeks? I think not.
‘You can hear all the senior police officers squirming as I say it, I would have thought.
‘A future family like this is going to face the torment of not knowing whether to run the risk of gratuitously wrecking your relative’s reputation by giving every detail away – or missing the chance of catching whoever has got them, or getting her back.’
In a statement after Ms Bulley’s struggles with alcohol and the menopause were made public on Wednesday, her family said: ‘It has now been three weeks since Nikki went missing. We, as a family, believe that the public focus has become distracted from finding Nikki, and more about speculation and rumours into her and Paul’s private life.
‘As a family, we were aware beforehand that Lancashire Police, last night, released a statement with some personal details about our Nikki.
‘Although we know that Nikki would not have wanted this, there are people out there speculating and threatening to sell stories about her. This is appalling and needs to stop.
‘The police know the truth about Nikki and now the public need to focus on finding her.
‘Due to the peri menopause Nikki suffered with significant side effects such as brain fog, restless sleep and was taking HRT to help but this was giving her intense headaches which caused Nikki to stop taking the HRT thinking that may have helped her but only ended up causing this crisis.
‘The public focus has to be on finding her and not making up wild theories about her personal life.’
Mr Davis’ family say they are unhappy that police have not done more to follow up a report from crew members of a cruise ship who spotted a man in the sea close to the port early on October 30, the morning after his disappearance.
A life buoy was thrown into the water and emergency services scrambled but nobody was located.
Neither Mr Davis’ phone nor his bank cards have been used since he vanished and his passport was later found on a bench outside the ferry terminal.
He had been visiting friends in Ibiza and had taken a ferry across to Barcelona to meet someone. At the time he had been suffering depression following a knee injury which threatened to cut his rugby career short.
DailyMail
