Corrie McKeague’s uncle slams cops for not searching landfill site earlier despite desperate plea from mum
MISSING Corrie McKeague’s uncle has slammed police over their delay in searching a landfill site for the missing airman.
Tony Wringe believes the tip should have been searched five months ago when the family requested them to after the 23-year-old gunner went missing.
But specialist teams only started scouring the landfill site earlier this month.
The development came after detectives learned a bin lorry which had travelled from Bury St Edmunds., Suffolk, had been heavy enough to carry a body.
Writing on Facebook, Mr Wringe said: "At the outset we made the observation that there could only be three possibilities."
He went on: "1. Corrie was still in the horseshoe area. 2. He left on foot. 3. He left in a vehicle.
"Within the first few hours/days the local police team were telling us he was not there and was not seen on CCTV leaving on foot. This left the vehicles.
"The most obvious deduction on the circumstantial evidence (the bin area, the bin lorry, the phone ping) we assumed he may have gone out in the bin lorry.
"We begged the police to search the tip. They said no, and never. Nicola (Corrie's mum) pleaded with them to at least secure the area. Again, no. They did not feel there was any future value in holding the site.
"Every minute they take to do this, there is a mother staring at her phone hoping for it to ring and praying that it won't.
"This should have happened five months ago."
Police have been going through 60 tonnes a day roughly since starting the search at the site in Milton, Cambs., on 6 March.
The search is currently in its fourth week and is estimated to take ten.
Mr Wringe echoed the thoughts of a former Metropolitan Police detective chief inspector, who claimed that the police should have searched the area earlier.
DCI Steve Gaskin said: "There has been a clear opportunity that's been missed. You don't even need to be a detective to understand that there has been mistakes here. Any reasonable person would have undertook an investigation of that site a lot earlier.
"All you need to see are the words bin, lorry, landfill site. It sounds to me as though there are some detective skills missing there."
A Suffolk Constabulary spokesman said: “The landfill site search was always one possibility police were looking at, after it was thought Corrie’s phone may have been in the bin lorry, however it was only one of the possibilities.
"It was thought extremely unlikely that he went with his phone due to the information officers had at that time about the weight of the pick-up. Officers were told that the waste pick up from the area was just 11kg, and it was only through comprehensive checking and re-checking by police that this was recently found to be incorrect.
“The bin lorry had also been forensically examined and this did not reveal any traces of Corrie."
The spokesman added: “Initial witness accounts indicated that Corrie may have tried to walk back to Honington. There was also speculation that something else may have happened to him – that he may have been taken against his will, or may have willingly gone with someone for example - and officers could not afford to rule out any of these options.
“Painstaking work followed alongside searches, comprehensive CCTV examination and background enquiries to see what may have happened. The combination of the lack of CCTV sightings and witness information gradually ruled out many of the other possibilities but it was only by carrying out these enquiries – and the work to check the data provided - that this was found to be the most likely option.
“We knew the cost of any search of the landfill site would run into hundreds of thousands of pounds - it is estimated the cost of the search will be around £500,000 if it lasts ten weeks - but this was always going to be the case. The difference now is that we believe we’re looking for more than just Corrie’s mobile phone, which we already had acquired data from through other means."
Corrie, 23, has been missing since September 24 after a night out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.