Corrie McKeague: Reward For Missing RAF Man To Be Withdrawn

The reward for information leading to the discovery of missing RAF man Corrie McKeague is to be withdrawn on Saturday if it remains unclaimed.

Writing on the Find Corrie Facebook page, the airman's mother Nicola Urquhart said the £50,000 reward, which was offered by an anonymous Suffolk business couple in early December, will be withdrawn on February 18. She said:

"At this moment in time, the offer of a reward hasn't brought to the fore, the information we had hoped for.

"Following discussion, we consider it sensible that the offer of a reward should not remain in place indefinitely. As such, we have decided to leave a reward in place for one more week." 

"On behalf of my family, I would wish to publicly thank from the bottom of our hearts the couple concerned.

"Not only have they offered what would be to most of us, a life-changing sum of money in the shape of the reward, they have also given their time and made great efforts to assist us find Corrie. We will be forever grateful to them for this."

It comes after Ms Urquhart provided an update on the police search of a landfill site as the hunt for the missing airman continues.

She said the search, which could take six to 10 weeks, is likely to begin around February 22 once preparatory work has been completed, adding that it "will be an incredibly difficult time waiting for news each day".

The area of the landfill site where waste was deposited from Bury St Edmunds on the morning of Corrie's disappearance has not had further items added to it since police alerted the site, early in the investigation, to the possibility that it may need to be searched.

Detective Superintendent Katie Elliott said:

"There are some measures that we need to put in place before the full search work starts as, in addition to the pressing need to find Corrie, we also have to consider local residents, site workers and the officers who will be carrying out the job of going through the waste."

"We know that physically searching the site has the potential to cause an increase in odour and we hope residents will understand that we and the site owners have taken this into consideration when making a decision to go ahead with the search.

"However we also hope they will understand why we are doing this as part of our continuing investigation to find Corrie.

"We need to find him and discover what happened to him. While the search may not provide the answers as to what happened it is something we need to do as our investigation continues."

More: Police Search Buildings In Hunt For Corrie