Nicola Bulley: The frantic calls from partner went unanswered on the morning she vanished in St Michael’s

Frantic efforts by Nicola Bulley's partner to contact her on the morning she vanished were revealed on the first day of an inquest in Preston.

Paul Ansell tried six times in seven minutes to call her phone after the alarm was raised by dog walkers on the banks of the River Wyre. And finally he sent her a WhatsApp message asking: "Have you got lost?"

Tragically all the calls went unanswered because Lancashire's Senior Coroner Dr James Adeley heard it was likely the 45-year-old mother-of-two had already been swept to her death in the icy waters near St Michael's.

A specialist from Lancashire Police's Digital Media Investigation Unit told the inquest that he examined Nicola's mobile phone which had been left on a bench by the river and found the last human interaction had been at 9:18 that morning.

By the time her partner Paul was alerted at home in Inskip and tried to make contact it was more than an hour later.

And when the Fitbit fitness device on her wrist was examined after the discovery of her body it showed that the step counter had ceased at around 9:30am.

The Coroner was told that from all the data available from the iPhone and Fitbit it was estimated Nicola had entered the water sometime between 9:18 and 9:30 - at least 90 minutes before a 999 call was made.

Earlier the inquest heard from nine locals who either saw Nicola on the morning she disappeared or discovered her pet spaniel Willow sitting by the riverside bench where her phone was left, still connected to an office conference call.

Two of the witnesses said they had heard a scream coming from the vicinity of the river - one at about 9:35 am and the second at 9:50am. Both women said they felt the noises were not worrying.

Nurse Helen O'Neill, who had seen Nicola earlier on the school car park where she had dropped off her two daughters, said she later heard a high-pitched yell when she was in her back garden.

"It wasn't an alarming noise," she said. "It was over in a couple of seconds. I'm quite used to hearing the children at school break time, but it wasn't that noise. I pictured in my head it was two females, teenagers, walking on the river path and one jumped out on the other. I didn’t think anything of it until later that night."

Veronica Claesen, secretary of the local tennis club, likened the scream she heard to "children having fun at the back of the graveyard. It was the sort of scream that I would do if, say, my husband walked in on me - an element of surprise."

Retired care worker Susan Jones described how she found Nicola's dog near to the bench where her mobile phone was. She tied it up with some twine to make sure it didn't run off and called her husband who recognised the family photo on the phone's wallpaper.

A call was put in to the local school in an attempt to get a message to Paul. Minutes later the school rang back to say he was on his way to the scene. "He said she was struggling," said Mrs Jones.

When he failed to get any response by phone he set off, leaving the house at 10:56am and making a 999 call at 11:00am, arriving at the riverside at 11:10am

The inquest was shown a timeline by Det Supt Rebecca Smith who was the officer in charge of the operation to search for Nicola. It began when Nicola left home in Inskip with the children and her dog at 8:26am. At 9am she had sent a Facebook message while walking her dog in a field near the river. It was a reply to a friend called Lucie Musella fixing up a play afternoon for their children the following day and also planning to go out with a group of girls on the Saturday night "for a few drinks."

Coroner James Adeley said: "So she was making plans?" Ms Musella replied: "Yes."

Nicola dialled into a Teams meeting on her phone at 9:01am, but she muted the call and didn't speak on it. Police interviewed her workmates who were on that call and no-one heard anything. The call ended at 9:30am but Nicola remained logged on after it finished.

DC Keith Greenhalgh of the Digital Media Investigation Unit said he had looked at her mobile phone and its movements, as well as examining a Fitbit wrist watch found on the body.

The phone showed no signs of having been anywhere near the water, but the Fitbit had eventually lost power on February 4 despite being in the water for eight days.

The device showed Nicola had completed 4,548 steps that morning between 8am and 9:30am, but there were no further steps recorded after that. He said it was fair to assume that Nicola had entered the water after 9:18am and before 9:30am.

Proceeding