Agony goes on for family of missing RAF Gunner Corrie McKeague, a year after he vanished

The past few days have been agony for the family of missing RAF Gunner Corrie McKeague.

First they had to remember his birthday without him, now they have to endure the anniversary of his disappearance one year ago on Sunday.

Adding to the family’s sorrow is the fact his girlfriend April gave birth to a baby girl earlier this year, a daughter McKeague will never see.

But the pain of the past year has not dimmed their determination to continue their search for an answer to the question: how did Corrie seemingly disappear without a trace, and where is he?

If anything it has made them more steadfast.

"We don't have closure,” said McKeague’s father Martin. “We can't put him to rest, we can't go through that grieving. It's an emptiness because we don't have him. All I'm focused on is finding my son.”

McKeague’s mother, Nicola Urquhart added: "We have our tough days, but this month is going to be the toughest yet. It has been a year and we know nothing more than we knew a week after we first got that call saying he was missing.

“As a mother and as a family this is so hard. Everything the investigation has done has been based on a lack of evidence and information — and that is incredibly frustrating.”

The 23-year-old, who who had joined the RAF at the age of 19 and was based at RAF Honington, in Suffolk, was last seen after a night out in Bury St Edmunds.

He was captured on CCTV in the early hours of September 24 last year, walking into an alleyway known as the Horseshoe, behind a Greggs bakery, after becoming separated from his friends.

The subsequent police investigation led detectives to believe that the airman had fallen asleep in a large industrial bin, which was then taken in a bin lorry to the Milton landfill in Cambridgeshire. where his mobile phone signal was traced. The phone’s movements matched the route the waste lorry would have taken.

But despite a painstaking search 6,300 tons of landfill and incinerator waste, no trace was found of McKeague and the search of the site called off in July this year.

An internal police review of the investigation is currently taking place, with officers trying to spot any leads they may have missed.

This weekend both of McKeague’s parents travelled from their homes in Scotland to Bury St Edmunds, to help police appeal for the vital break needed to solve the mystery of his disappearance.

Ms Urquhart, from Dunfermline, Fife, will spend Sunday retracing her son’s last known steps through the town, starting at the So Bar, in the hope of jogging memories.

Before setting off she said: “This is really important. This is for the investigation. We're looking to get any information to come in. I'll be there to explain everything that happened that night."

She added: "All we know is that Corrie walked into that dead end, the horseshoe area, and he is never seen coming out.

“I truly believed he was in [the landfill site], but after they searched it thoroughly and not finding him, I can understand why the search has been stopped.

"We need someone to come forward with any new line of inquiry that the police can investigate."

Corrie’s father spent Saturday at a police pod along the route Corrie was known to have taken through the town centre that night, also in the hope of prompting new witnesses to come forward.

"It's been a horrendous year, with an awful lot of lows for me and my wife and everybody round about me, and my mother and father,” he said. "I never thought for one minute we would be a year down the line.”

In July Mr McKeague, 48, even went to the lengths of blockading the Milton landfill site with his motorhome, hoping to persuade police not to abandon the search.

Now he hopes a tiny clue may yet lead to the family’s agony being finally brought to a close.

“If somebody knows something, or has held back or anything at all, get yourself down to the police pod and do the right thing, Anything -- the smallest thing might hold the key. He might have said something to somebody that night. There's no rest until we find him."

April Oliver now lives with her parents David and Kirsty in the isolated village of Fincham, near Downham Market, in Norfolk, where she devotes her time to caring for the daughter her boyfriend never saw.

Ms Oliver had not found out she was pregnant until mid-October, two weeks after McKeague went missing, and her Facebook page hints at how difficult the past year has been.

In July she wrote: “My little Ellie brings so much joy and happiness even at the hardest of times.”

Before the birth, she wrote movingly about how much she missed Corrie and how much he would have enjoyed having a daughter.

“I miss and love Corrie with every part of my body and little things set off different emotions. I can't help but be truly unconditionally in love with my baby and you're not here yet,” she wrote.

April, who had been with McKeague for five months when he went missing, added: “You bring so much pain yet just as much joy and your daddy would be proud of you my little one and would love you as much as I do. Corrie will be a part of both of us forever and no one can take that away.”

In the days before the anniversary of McKeague’s disappearance Suffolk police released CCTV stills of individuals they wish to talk to who may have had some interaction with him on the night he went missing

Detective Superintendent Katie Elliott said: "It is fair to say that a year on from him going missing, we never thought we would be in this position of not yet locating Corrie or establishing exactly what happened to him.

"We have always wanted to provide answers to Corrie’s family about what happened to him.”

Additional reporting by Oliver Price