Nicola Bulley and Jay Slater’s coroner on the truth beyond the conspiracy theories

Dr James Adeley ruled both deaths accidental, but both missing persons cases sparked major media interest and conspiracy theories, fuelled by baseless social media speculation

The coroner who oversaw investigations into the deaths of Nicola Bulley and Jay Slater has opened up about “conspiracy theories and baseless accusations” that were fuelled by social media. Dr James Adeley is now retired after 20 years as a senior coroner.

His final major major inquest was that of Jay Slater, the tragic teenager who died when he fell 75ft down a ravine as he walked back to his digs after vanishing during a holiday in Tenerife with pals.

And 18 months earlier, Dr Adeley was in charge of the inquest into the death of Nicola Bulley, a 45-year-old mother-of-two whose body was pulled from a river after three weeks after she went missing during a dog walk after doing the school run.

Dr Adeley, who was the senior coroner for Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen for two decades, ruled both deaths accidental. But both missing persons cases sparked major media interest and conspiracy theories, fuelled by baseless social media speculation.

Jay’s heartbroken mother Debbie Duncan last week told of her torment after she was accused by online ghouls that she murdered her son, while Nicola’s partner Paul Ansell was also attacked by trolls and conspiracy theorists online.

Speaking publicly about both cases for the first time, Dr Adeley said social media can sometimes “increase transparency”, but it has a “dark side” of “misinformation, polarisation and manipulation of views”.

He told the Telegraph of the Nicola Bulley case: “The problem is that social media disseminates opinion that can easily be misinterpreted as factual comment, and it’s very easy to move from opinion to conspiracy theories to baseless accusations.”

The social media speculation was so intense that he said he wanted “to put various internet theories to bed” during her inquest. He added: “Normally you wouldn’t include certain items of evidence, but you’re doing it in order to provide closure on that point so that the family doesn’t suffer any more.”

But despite his ruling, armchair detectives have not relented. He added: “You still have people believing that Nicola Bulley was killed and stored in a pipe and then brought out again, even now, after all of this evidence is played out.”

Ahead of Nicola’s inquest in June 2023, police were situated outside Preston County Hall overnight and ran him through a drill on what to do if somebody threw something at him in court. He even had a visit from the head of the counter terrorism unit, he said.

A year later, Jay’s disappearance in Tenerife once again sparked a social media frenzy in which wild rumours were shared online without any evidence and the police search was hampered by a blizzard of misinformation.

The apprentice bricklayer was the subject of horrible theories and his inquest was initially adjourned after key witnesses failed to show up in court. Dr Adeley said: “The difficulty in the preparation for the inquest was that, because the social media commentary was so aggressive, quite a few of the witnesses did not want to be involved.”

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