Corrie McKeague: Jury inquest for RAF gunner who vanished on night out after ‘climbing into bin’

No trace of airman, 23, ever found despite police twice searching landfill site in multi-million pound investigation

An inquest into the death of RAF gunner Corrie McKeague who vanished after a night out in 2016 is due to be heard by a jury (Suffolk Police/PA)

An inquest into the death of RAF gunner Corrie McKeague, who vanished after a night out in 2016, is due to be heard next month.

Suffolk’s senior coroner Nigel Parsley ruled that matters of evidence, discussed during legal argument on Thursday, should not be reported until after the inquest so as not to influence the jury.

The full inquest, listed for four weeks, is set to begin on 7 March.

Mr McKeague, from Dunfermline, Fife, was 23 when he vanished in the early hours of 24 September 2016 after a night out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Suffolk Police believe the airman climbed into a bin which was then tipped into a waste lorry, with the force ruling out other theories.

Mr McKeague, who would now be 28, was reported missing at 3.42pm on 26 September by colleagues at RAF Honington.

Despite a multi-million pound investigation, which included two separate searches of a landfill site in Milton, Cambridgeshire, no trace of him has ever been found.

For years, his mother Nicola Urquhart made numerous appeals as she held out hope her son might be found alive.

Nicola Urquhart, mother of missing RAF gunner Corrie McKeague, retraces her sons final steps in Bury St Edmunds exactly a year after his disappearance (Joe Giddens/PA)

But she eventually accepted he was dead – although she disputed the police theory.

As recently as 2020, she appealed for help finding drivers who may have picked her son up after nights out during his years at RAF Honington.

The request came after the mother spoke to a woman reportedly linked to a local taxi firm who claimed drivers had picked up her son as he walked back to the base while drunk.

At the time, Ms Urquhart believed there was a possibility her son made it out of the so-called “horseshoe” area in Bury St Edmunds, in which he was last seen, and attempted to make his way back the base.

Police searching a landfill site in Milton, Cambridgeshire, for missing RAF gunner Corrie McKeague (Chris Radburn/PA)

She told the East Anglian Times: “He’s walked out, he’s been trying to get back up the road then something’s happened that’s catastrophic and he’s died.”

The airman’s father Martin McKeague said he hoped the upcoming inquest would help bring his family closure.

Speaking ahead of the fifth anniversary of his son’s disappearance in September 2021, he told the Mirror: “My life stopped the day my son Corrie went missing. I’m still really struggling to come to terms with it.

“I miss Corrie every day he’s in my thoughts every day and I just want some dignity for him.

“All we want is the truth to come out.”

Mr McKeague’s girlfriend April Oliver, then 21, discovered she was pregnant with his child just weeks after he disappeared.

She announced the birth of their daughter Ellie-Louise in a Father’s Day post in June 2017 and gave her the middle name “Corrie” as a tribute.