A TIKTOK creep burst into the official press room with a GoPro strapped to his chest the day Nicola Bulley’s body was found.
Despite being a barber with no journalistic credentials, Curtis Arnold managed to wander through the cordoned off section in St Michael’s, Lancashireto get content for him social media.
8
8
8
He wore a blue and white Pierre Cardin polo shirt and gray sweatpants with the camera clipped to his collar.
On the same day, he deceived the police and secretly filmed the mother of two being retrieved from the River Wyre – more than three weeks after she had disappeared.
The 34-year-old posted grim images of officers on the waterfront TikTok And YouTube.
Arnold’s sickening eight-minute clip sparked a wave of condemnation, but the nearly million views earned him nearly £1,000 in royalties.
He also shared video of the ashen couple in shock after they found 45-year-old Nicola in thatch on February 19.
He previously recorded a “possible burial place” in a wood near where Nicholas was last seen on Jan. 27 headlined a series of videos featuring outrageous slander against her partner Paul Ansel.
Arnold claims to offer “media and journalism done differently” but hides his identity online.
He avoids appearing on camera and sometimes uses a photo of Paul as his profile picture.
But he was exposed after being tracked down to his barber shop from his digital footprint and channel rebranding.
The powerlifter made five to six hours round trip from his Worcestershire home St Michael’s on Wyre in a span of 10 days to acquire content for its online following.
Arnold’s most sickening video from the village begins with his GoPro strapped to a harness around his neck, filming a male police officer blocking his path.
He is asked to turn back, but tricks the cop into letting him through by claiming to return to his parked car and saying he’s out Blackpool.
As dozens of officers gather and a police helicopter and drone hover overhead, Arnold asks a female colleague on the other side of the cordon, “What’s going on there? I walked down and he wouldn’t let me through .”
She also orders him to leave the area, but the video then cuts to Arnold covertly filming as officers lift what looks like a body bag.
Many viewers reacted with horror to his footage with the headline “Nicola Bulley *breaking* police found something”.
One wrote: “This is disgraceful! Imagine if that was your lover. I hope her family doesn’t see this.”
Another said, “You need your head to film this. Her children will see this one day, you mean man.”
He will do anything to get more views to make money.
Arnold’s TikTok account focused on Nicola’s case, which had more than 13,000 followers and 100,000 likes, has since been taken down, but the video remains online elsewhere.
When asked if he was behind the infamous video, he replied, “Yes. How did you find me?”
He admitted lying to police and crouching in a field to covertly film on his Samsung S21 smartphone.
Arnold recalled, “I held the phone above me as high as I could and rested it on a fence.
“I couldn’t see anything, but I knew my camera would record whatever happened.”
Arnold, whose ambition is to “make a good living full-time” from YouTube, gleefully revealed the £716.06 in royalties he earned from the platform alone, adding: “It’s probably £900 now, but it will take just before it comes through.”
He is single and lives in a three-bedroom detached house near the hairdresser’s, which he has been running for the past two years.
His first viral videos were of “car fishing” – vehicles getting loose while trying to drive through deep water – at Rufford Ford near Newark, Nottinghamshire.
Nottinghamshire County Council had to close the river in December at the request of police after the TikTok craze turned the small rural road into one of the world’s most notorious roads.
‘SHAMEful’
Someone who knows Arnold well said: “He will do anything to get more views to make money.
“He gives all TikTokers a bad reputation.”
Another video, titled “Nicola Bulley *UNSEEN* APPROACHED HOUSE SEARCH,” has been viewed nearly 100,000 times on YouTube.
It shows Arnold wandering around a large, supposedly vacant house across the river from the bank where Nicola was last seen and her phone found.
He has also been criticized for a video he uploaded to another of his channels on February 18 of a “possible burial site”.
He filmed a man digging in some undergrowth and it appeared the pair were working together as a search team.
But Arnold said he just ran into another amateur detective and said, “I’ve never met him before. I just filmed him digging.”
Arnold claims his secret recordings prompted death threats and he apologized to Nicola’s family for any “distress” he may have caused.
But he’s not deterred and says he plans to follow as many breaking news stories as possible to post online.
POLICE UNDER FIRE
“It gives the public a chance to get closer to the event and in the Nicola case I wanted people to look at my footage to see if they noticed that I or the police had missed something,” he added.
Experts say social media algorithms encourage and reward controversial content like Arnold’s — though TikTok insists it removes content and accounts that engage in bullying and harassment or otherwise violate policies.
On TikTok alone, there are 400 million views of videos with the hashtag “NicolaBulley”.
They include more than half a million views from 26-year-old Welsh “psychic” Lucy Hesford-Buckingham, who shared her take on the case before Nicola’s body was found.
In her video, she claimed she intuitively sensed from an “overwhelming scent of lemon bleach” that Nicola was alive but held captive and in “serious danger”.
So many sleuths descended on St Michael’s on Wyre that at one point the police had to issue a 48-hour dispersal order to clear the village of outsiders.
Lancashire Police have come under fire for how they generally handle investigations.
Police are now facing three external investigations into the Search for 23 days for mortgage advisor Nicola.
The Independent Bureau of Police Conduct is research a wellness visit made to the family home by an officer two weeks earlier.
A training and policy body, the Police College, will examine both the hunt and the decision to release information about a alcohol issue triggered by the menopause.
The Sun revealed last night that Lancashire Police was bombarded by watchdogs three months before she disappeared.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary felt that the Corps “needs improvement in investigating crime”.
It added that officers did not “always conduct thorough and timely investigations” and that “victims are not always kept informed of progress”.
Nikla was found a mile downstream from where she is believed to have fallen.
8
8
8
8
8