Mark’s words on LinkedIn – Police handling of Nicola Bulley case
Nicola Bulley’s family are enduring an unimaginable tragedy and deserve better than the treatment they have endured at the hands of the police and the media. Those responsible for the police’s communications must take their share of responsibility.
Even considering limitations on what they can share with the public, the police seem to break another cardinal rule of communications every day since her disappearance. In doing so they are increasing her family’s suffering and further undermining public trust in the institution.
Trust in the police is at an all-time low. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)’s own Public Perception Tracker showed decreased confidence in the police, aggravated by increased perceptions of misogyny and racism.
The former is particularly pertinent to the case of a missing woman in the aftermath of the murder of Sarah Everard by an off-duty police officer. This should have put the police on warning that their honesty and integrity would under the microscope in this latest case.
They failed to do so and initially stonewalled the public, releasing only snippets of information and dealing in tight-lipped innuendo.
This created an information vacuum which was quickly filled with harmful speculation and conspiracy theories, proliferated by ambulance-chasers, the fame hungry and TikTok true crime enthusiasts desperate to make the ambitious step from rehashing Wikipedia to real-life detective.
The police failed to act quickly and directly to address the ensuing disinformation and restore some transparency and trust to proceedings, and in doing so heightened emotions and tension around the case.
They mishandled an already-stick situation further with a callous instance of victim-blaming, unleashing further public backlash and ensuring that their communications failure became the story – the final symptom of a total communications catastrophe.
Of course, some elements of the media bear their share of responsibility for fanning the flames, but the police have a responsibility to drag their communications into the twenty-first century, professionalise, and show accountability to the public they serve.
Robyn Vinter’s analysis for the Guardian is an instructive view of this communications failure from the media’s point-of-view:
Mark’s words on LinkedIn – Police handling of Nicola Bulley case