Police have cordoned off the scene where Nicola Bulley was last seen, as specialist divers return to search the river.

It comes almost a week after the 45-year-old mother of two vanished on Friday whilst walking her dog in Lancashire.

The blue tape now closes off the footpath that leads to the bench, where Ms Bulley's phone was found in the small village of St Michael’s on Wyre. 

Her dog, a springer spaniel named Willow, was found running loose along with its lead and harness, which were also found on the bench. 

Ms Bulley's phone was still logged on to a conference call at the mortage advisory firm where she works.

Intensive searches have been carried out since Friday, involving specialist police teams using helicopters, drones and dogs, and with support from the Coastguard, Bowland Mountain Rescue and Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service.

But these intensified on Thursday, with police officers and dive teams combing the river for clues.

The alarm was raised when a local business owner found the dog running free beside the River Wyre around an hour after she was last seen at 9.15am on Friday.

She then discovered Ms Bulley’s phone, which she recognised her from the family photo used as her lock screen background. 

Ms Bulley's parents revealed they have asked the police whether it was possible that she could have been kidnapped because she would never have left her children.

On Wednesday, her father Ernest, 73, told The Mirror: “There was no sign of a slip or falling in, so our thought was ‘has somebody got her?’ 

"I asked the sergeant from Fleetwood a few days ago ‘is there any chance of her being taken?’ She said ‘I don’t think that’s the case’.

“I said ‘how can you know that?’. It’s such an isolated area, the only way that has happened is if it was someone who knew her. We will never stop looking.”

Mr Bulley said he had last seen his daughter on Thursday when they dropped her two children off after taking care of them while she worked.

“Her mind was great,” he said, and she was “very upbeat” about bringing in a new client. He added: “I gave her a kiss and told her I loved her and that was the last conversation I had with her.”

Dorothy Bulley, 72, said her daughter “lived for her children” and had bought tickets to watch them perform at choir and gymnastics shows in recent weeks. 

She had also been planning a spa break with her younger sister, Louise, the night before she went missing.

Mrs Bulley said: “We find it really hard to think about wondering is she ok and where is she? You wake in the night and you can’t get back off to sleep.”

Mr Bulley, who jointly owns a freight transport company with his wife, said the family had no idea what might have happened to her.

“We just dread to think we will never see her again, if the worst came to the worst and she was never found, how will we deal with that for the rest of our lives,” he said.

An abandoned house opposite the spot where Ms Bulley’s belongings were found has also been searched as part of the investigation. 

The last person to see Ms Bulley before she went missing said she had seemed “completely normal”. He said he would see her on the same stretch of river most days while exercising dogs, walking a short ten minute loop.

The owner of the Wyreside Park Farm caravan site, which police underwater search teams are using as a base, confirmed that she had found Willow and then the mobile phone.

She told The Telegraph: “I saw the dog and recognised the dog. Then I saw the phone and knew there was a problem.”

The businesswoman told her daughter-in-law, who called Paul Ansell, Ms Bulley’s partner. He alerted police. 
The dog was reportedly “bone dry” and in an “agitated state” when found.