Conspiracy theories about Nicola Bulley have to stop, one of her close friends has said.
Speaking two weeks to the day since the mother-of-two went missing, Emma White has urged the public not to take the “law into their own hands” or “speculate” about her disappearance.
Appearing on BBC’s Today Programme on Friday, she said amateur sleuths knocking on people’s doors to help find Ms Bulley “are not helping the situation”.
She said: “Ultimately yes we all want to bring Nicky home but we need to do it in a logical, systematic way and we have to leave it to the police.
“We say don’t speculate, don’t make any conspiracy theories up and certainly don't take the law into your own hands.”
Her comments come after Lancashire Police on Wednesday were forced to issue a dispersal order to remove social media influencers from the scene near the River Wyre where the 45-year-old mortgage advisor went missing on Jan 27.
The order means anyone taking photos and videos for social media can be sent away.
Ms White described the need by the force to issue as a “misuse of police time” and a “wasting” of “valuable resources” that “take away” from the “ultimate goal to bring Nicky home”.
Friends of Ms Bulley are in and around the village of Saint Michael's on Wyre with placards and banners of her face to try and help jog people’s memory about the morning of her disappearance.
Ms Bulley vanished within a 10-minute window while walking her spaniel, Willow, leaving her phone, which was still connected to a work call, on a bench.
Ms White added: “We have got a moving 8ft LED board of her face on it with the message ‘Bring Nicky Home’. We just need Nicky home to her two beautiful girls that want their mummy.
“Like I said before, it is just a rollercoaster, it is almost like torture, this unbearable frustration. Frustration in the sense that everyone has come together working so hard from the police, the community to people on the ground looking.
“You expect to be rewarded for when you put hard work in. We just need, something, anything, a piece of information that could lead us down a different inquiry.”
On Thursday, Lancashire Constabulary said the focus of the investigation was now in a tidal area of the River Wyre and “out towards the sea”.
Two police boat teams had been seen searching in Morecambe Bay before moving further upstream.
The bay is a sweeping estuary south of the Lake District National Park, stretching from the south-west coast of Cumbria to Fleetwood.
Police officers were also seen searching the banks of the estuary at Shard Bridge, near Skippool, about five miles from the coast.
Police have been working on the theory that Ms Bulley fell into the river but stressed they remain open-minded.
It was also revealed on Thursday that the alarm was only raised with police almost two hours after Ms Bulley's disappearance.