Police are reportedly investigating claims that there were two men acting "suspiciously" near the spot where Nicola Bulley went missing last month.
The mother of two, 45, was last seen on January 27 after dropping her two young daughters off at school and taking the family's dog for a walk near the River Wyre.
A short while later her cell phone was found on a bench still connected to a work conference call, while her springer spaniel was found wandering without a lead, appearing agitated. There has been no sign of Bulley since.
Despite extensive searches of the river using divers and sonar, no trace of the missing mom has been found in the water thus far, leading her family to call for further avenues to be investigated.
According to new reports from The Sun, police are now looking at CCTV from the 24 hours before Bulley vanished after a witness claimed to see two men acting suspiciously in the vicinity.
The witness came forward after seeing the pair outside the local church, claiming they also saw one of the men near to Bulley's usual route on the morning that she disappeared.
It's also claimed that police are looking at CCTV from a nearby garage across the 24-hour period prior to when Bulley was last seen.
A worker from the garage who wished to remain anonymous told the publication: "Two smartly dressed officers came in following up, a man and a woman. They wanted the CCTV from the day before Nicola vanished and to take statements of any activity we had seen from that day."
They added that they knew the witness and that that person had already reported what they'd seen to the police, who said they were "following up" the potential lead.
The CCTV system at the garage covers one of the key exit points of the area Bulley went missing, while one of the cameras also covers the top of a country lane near where the mom was last seen.
Bulley's partner Paul Ansell had urged police to search further afield after revealing he was convinced she never entered the water, and that somebody in the village must know something about her disappearance.
Extensive searches have been taking place in the river and further along the water after the police initially believed she likely fell in, but so far have proved fruitless.
Peter Faulding, who took on the underwater search with his Specialist Internationalist Group firm, called off his search last week, revealing that he thinks the police made an error by concentrating on the river so heavily.
He told the Daily Mail: "I think the worst mistake the police have made was to declare early on that she’s in the river rather than saying 'let’s keep lines of inquiry open'.
"This is a lady who knew this area intimately, she was slim and fit, and if she had fallen she could have grabbed on to the bank."
Faulding pointed out that the water level near the bench where Bulley's phone was found was generally shallow, adding: "It’s even more shallow now but on the day it would have been around two feet deep, if she slipped she would have gone in and hit rock very quickly and been up to her thigh, that’s all. This is not drowning territory."
He also explained that most victims of drowning are usually found between five and 10 meters of where they entered the water, so believes she would have been found by now if she had indeed ended up in the river,
