The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Reported Corrie sighting ‘still active line of inquiry’
Mother of missing airman has spoken to man who said he saw her son
The mother of missing RAF airman Corrie McKeague “most certainly believes“the sighting given by a lorry driver who claims he saw her son – one hour after the last known sighting.
Nicola Urquhart said on Wednesday that police are now treating reports that Corrie was spotted at 4.30am, crossing a busy road on the morning he went missing, as an “active line of inquiry”.
The sighting was initially dismissed by police when given shortly after the 23-year-old went missing in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in September last year.
Nicola, 49, revealed she had personally spoken to Roy Hawes who claims to have seen a male matching Corrie’s appearance 12 miles from where he was last captured on CCTV.
The 55-year-old said he saw a man matching the 23-year-old’s description wearing a pink shirt and brown boots.
Police are continuing to comb through thousands of tonnes of waste at a Milton landfill in Cambridge where it is believed Corrie’s body may be found.
But while answering questions from members on the Find Corrie Facebook page, Nicola revealed she believed the delivery driver.
A member from the group said: “I have personally spoken to Roy, the driver who states, and I believe him 100%, that he saw him and saw him doing his boots up at the side of the road, the morning he went missing.”
Nicola responded within minutes confirming that she had also spoken to the driver and believed his account of the night her son went missing.
She said: “I, too, have spoken to Roy. And he is most certainly believed by me. I have followed this up with the police and it is still an active line of inquiry.”
The revelation comes months after Mr Hawes reportedly told a newspaper: “I saw him clear as day. He stopped on the central reservation and adjusted the jeans above his boots with his foot on the crash barrier.
“Then he ran to the other side and disappeared near an Esso station.”
The bread delivery driver claims he was driving his van when he saw Corrie run across the A11 at Barton Mills – close to the area where his phone was tracked to at a landfill.
At the time, a Suffolk Police spokesman said: “Police have the report, the time given was prior to Corrie’s phone leaving Bury St Edmunds. There was nothing to link this to Corrie.”