Corrie McKeague search cops trawling landfill site for missing RAF gunner draft in a HARRIS HAWK to help fend off scavengers

COPS have brought in a South American Hawk to keep other birds from the landfill site where they are searching for the body of missing airman Corrie McKeague.

A search team probing his disappearance has been trawling through 60 tonnes of waste at a landfill site today.

The South American Harris Hawk is being used at the waste tip to keep the area clear of potential scavengers.

Officers in white suits and breathing masks were spotted walking the site today as they spent a fourth day combing the area for the missing Scottish airman.

The full-scale search is expected to take eight to 10 weeks and comes after preparatory work which involved moving 8,000 tonnes of bulk material.

Earlier this week the police also revealed that a 26-year-old man arrested on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice in the investigation has been told he will face no further action.

He was arrested on March 1 and interviewed about information provided to the investigation before being bailed. But has now been told he faces no further action.

Police have been carrying out extensive work to check and re-check data provided to officers and as a result of this comprehensive checking process and analysis it was discovered that the initial weight of the waste pick-up supplied to the investigation was incorrect and that it was far higher than originally thought.

This directly led to the arrest but detectives now believe there was no attempt to hide the information.

Detective Superintendent Katie Elliott added: "Through the persistence of officers and their detailed work we recently identified that the data provided was incorrect.

"We now know the weight of the waste collection from the 'horseshoe' on the night Corrie went missing was over 100kg, when the original information we were given indicated that this was 11kg, and this makes our search of the landfill the next logical step to try to find Corrie.

"The investigation has identified that the company who provided the data usually charge per collection, not per weight of load collected, and it appears that it was genuinely believed by the company that the data provided was correct.

"There was no intention to mislead the investigation, however our discovery, through persisting with this through our enquiries and evidence gathering, now puts a new emphasis on the search.

"Corrie's family have been made aware of this new information and we continue to liaise with them as we move forward.

"Our extensive work around CCTV to see if Corrie could have left the Brentgovel Street area and the vast number of other enquiries we have been making have been crucial to getting us to this point.

"We have had to be methodical and systematic in our approach to ensure we were not ruling out the line of enquiry that may give us the answers. The search of the landfill is a huge undertaking, and still may not provide the answer as to what happened, but now, with new information uncovered by the officers working on the case, this is the priority.

"We would like to thank all of those organisations who have been assisting with the investigation. Their assistance and co-operation throughout has allowed us to conduct the enquiries we needed to do and we are grateful that they have been supportive of our work."

Corrie went missing after a night out with friends in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on September 24, last year.

He was last seen on CCTV going into an area of the town called the horseshoe.

Police know a waste collection was made from the area hours after he was last seen but the landfill in Milton had not been searched until now.

Detective Superintendent Katie Elliott added: "The search is likely to take six to ten weeks to complete, although this will obviously depend on daily progress on the site.

"We have a large area - around 920 square metres, up to a depth of eight metres - of waste to search through and a plan has been put in place to manage this process to ensure a thorough and comprehensive search is undertaken.

"Teams of specialist search trained police officers from both Suffolk and Norfolk will be carrying out the work to find anything that may be linked to the investigation.

"In planning the search we have taken into account not only the need to find Corrie, but also factors including the noise, odour and disruption implications for local residents and site workers, and the safety and welfare of the officers who will undertake the search.

"We know that physically searching the site has the potential to cause an increase in odour and we have taken steps to reduce this as much as possible.

"We hope residents will understand that we and the site owners have taken all these things into consideration when making a decision to go ahead with the search.

"However we also hope they will also understand why we are doing this as part of our ongoing enquiries 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."

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