LONDON — British police on Monday said that a body found the day before was that of Nicola Bulley, a mother of two who disappeared last month. Her high-profile case fed a debate about confidence in police and prompted a wave of internet sleuths to visit a small village in the northwest of England.

Bulley, 45, a mortgage adviser, went missing the morning of Jan. 27 after she dropped her daughters at school and set off with her dog for a riverside walk.

“Sadly we are now able to confirm that yesterday we recovered Nicola Bulley from the River Wyre,” Peter Lawson, Lancashire Police assistant chief constable, said at a Monday evening news conference.

The case seized the public imagination, with large numbers of people visiting the scene of the disappearance and the nearby village to conduct their own investigations. Conspiracy theories flourished. Police complained of “TikTokers playing private detectives” and issued dispersal orders and warnings to people making videos for social media near private property.

Bulley’s body was discovered Sunday by two people walking their dogs by the river, less than a mile from where she was last seen.

Lancashire police faced a backlash over their handling of the case when, almost three weeks into the investigation, they released a statement that Bulley had been classified as a high-risk missing person because she “suffered with some significant issues with alcohol which were brought on by her ongoing struggles with the menopause.”

The police said they released these details to “avoid any further speculation,” but critics maintained that this was an egregious breach of privacy and questioned whether details about a man’s reproductive status would have been released in the same way.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “concerned” that Bulley’s personal details were “put into the public domain.”

The case comes at a time when women’s confidence in policing is at a low ebb, after a series of policing scandals, including a serving police officer jailed for serial rape, and another jailed for the murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard.

Lancashire Police said early on that their working theory was that Bulley fell into the nearby river, but after initial searches by divers turned up nothing, some social media influencers arrived at St. Michael’s on Wyre and went hunting for clues.

Michael Vincent, the leader of Wyre Council, told The Post that his village of 600 people has begun to feel like “a theme park where people are coming along to play detective.” He said residents hired a private security company to help patrol streets after being scared by people peering in windows, trying door handles and descending on a derelict home.

A statement from Bulley’s family heavily criticized the role of the media in the investigation, saying that their privacy was not respected and that the press had accused Bulley’s partner of wrongdoing and “misquoted and vilified friends and family.”

Their statement, which was read out by police Monday night, also paid tribute to Bulley: “We will never forget Nikki, how could we, she was the centre of our world, she was the one who made our lives so special and nothing will cast a shadow over that.”