Corrie McKeague’s mother ‘terrified’ police will find his body in landfill search

The mother of missing RAF serviceman Corrie McKeague has told Sky News she is "terrified" police will find his body in landfill – but that it is unrealistic to think he is still alive.

Nicola Urquhart said her "absolute focus" is on the hunt for her son as officers and a digger begin sifting through mounds of waste.

Mr McKeague, who was stationed at RAF Honington in Suffolk, was last seen in Bury St Edmunds in the early hours of 24 September 2016 after becoming separated from his friends.

Police said on Tuesday that the weight of rubbish collected from the ‘Horseshoe’ – the cul-de-sac which the 23-year-old was seen entering but not leaving on the night he disappeared – was 100kg rather than the 11kg previously thought.

The signal from Mr McKeague’s phone appears to coincide with the movements of a bin lorry that was in the town on the night he disappeared.

Nicola Urquhart said she was "relieved" the landfill search was now happening.

"(I’m) terrified that they might find something, but at the same time so relieved because from the very beginning it’s been the most obvious, and the only bit of information that they’ve ever had – that Corrie’s phone travelled in the same place as the bin lorry.

"So it was relief, but at the same time I’m really, really worried and terrified that they might then find something."

Five months after he went missing, Ms Urquhart told Sky News it would be "quite unrealistic" to believe he was still alive, but she added that "thinking that and believing it are two different things".

"My absolute focus is on trying to keep it together for long enough to be able to find Corrie… I’ve just done the best I could to know everything was getting done," she said.

In January, Mrs Urquhart was joined by volunteers, search dogs and drones in a private search of fields near where his phone signal was last detected.

If the RAF man’s body was taken to the landfill after being scooped up in an industrial bin, the question turns to how and why he was in there, his mother said.

Mrs Urquhart said that while it was possible he climbed in of his own choice, it "seems so unlikely".

"He’s far too proud of his appearance, he’s far too vain, he wouldn’t let that happen," she said.

"But if you’re saying it’s not been an accident it means someone’s put him there, and that means someone’s lying to the police and they’ve managed to get away with it up until now."

The search team at the landfill site at Milton near Cambridge has already gone through 60 tonnes of waste, but the operation could take up to 10 weeks.

A digger is helping move mounds of waste, with police then raking through it on the ground.

A 26-year-old had been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice over the incorrect weight initially quoted for the bin lorry’s load.

But the man – who was not the lorry’s driver – faces no further action and police do not believe there was a "deliberate attempt to mislead".

(c) Sky News 2017: Corrie McKeague’s mother ‘terrified’ police will find his body in landfill search