Mum of missing RAF gunner Corrie McKeague says £50,000 reward will be withdrawn if nobody comes forward in the next week

THE mother of missing RAF serviceman Corrie McKeague has revealed a £50,000 reward for information will be withdrawn if no one comes forward with a useful lead in the next week.

Nicola Urqhuart, 48, said the offer of cash - offered by an anonymous business couple - will end next Saturday after it failed to produce any meaningful leads in the five-month investigation.

On her Find Corrie Facebook page, mum Nicola said: "As most of you will be aware, back in early December 2016, a £50,000 reward for information leading to Corrie being found was offered.

"The reward was kindly and very generously put forward by a business couple, local to Suffolk.

"It was their wish that they remained anonymous. 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 On February 18 the offer of a £50,000 reward will be withdrawn.

"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 two days after police looking for the missing airman said they would begin searching a landfill site in Cambridgeshire.

Officers believe there is a chance Corrie - who vanished from CCTV footage after a night out - could have left the area in a waste lorry despite the truck having no forensic traces of him.

Trained officers will sift through hundreds of tons of stinking rubbish at a landfill site 30 miles from where he was last seen in Bury St Edmunds on September 24.

Drop offs to the landfill were stopped after the young airman, from Dunfermline, vanished.

But the search area is huge. Police said the landfill covers around 1,000 sq ft and rubbish could be up to 26 ft deep.

Searching through it is expected to take six to ten weeks.

Detective Superintendent Katie Elliott said; “This is the next logical step in the investigation.

"Behind the scenes we have been working systematically through the options and we have examined a very broad range of evidence.

"This has involved an extensive examination of CCTV, phone and social media analysis, searches, media appeals, talking to those who had contact with Corrie, investigating his background and social life and tracing those who were out in Bury St Edmunds at the time of the last sighting – 3.25am on Saturday 24 September.

“Preparation work is already underway for the search and this will be progressed as quickly as possible.

"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 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.”

Signals from Corrie's phone, which has never been traced, have been linked to the waste truck.

The phone was receiving social media data almost 90 minutes after he was last seen – first in Bury St Edmunds and then again in the Barton Mills area, 13 miles away.

The times and locations are consistent with the route taken by a private, single-manned Biffa dustcart that collected cardboard waste from the bin area Corrie was seen entering behind shops.

It arrived at 4am and left 20 minutes later after the driver filled out paperwork.

It had previously been said that the weight of the truck on arrival means Corrie could not have been inside.

But, the RAF airman's uncle last month said the bin lorry theory is "still an active line of inquiry".

Since his disappearance it has been revealed that the missing RAF gunner is to become a dad in the spring.

In a desperate bid to trace him his family hired “an elite team of specialists” as his disappearance stretched into months.

Police have found no trace of the 23-year-old serviceman since he was last spotted on CCTV in the early hours of September 24.

He was reported missing after he failed to turn up at his base in RAF Honington, and it was feared he could have tried to walk the ten miles back.

Since Corrie's disappearance, Suffolk Police has carried out "extensive" investigative work to find him, searching woodland, scouring hundreds of hours of CCTV and tracing dozens of people who may held clues.

But, in November they admitted they have "no leads" despite trawling through 1,100 hours of CCTV footage.

Before Christmas Hollywood star Tom Hardy made a video appeal for help finding missing Corrie, from Dunfermline.

His mum Nicola has continued to organise huge searches of areas Corrie could have travelled through, without the assistance of police.

Anyone with information about Corrie's disappearance is asked to call the incident room at Suffolk Police on 01473 782019.