Mother of missing RAF airman Corrie Mckeague: I will never get closure

Corrie vanished on a night out in Bury St Edmunds, after he was asked to leave a nightclub due to being too drunk.

Nicola Urquhart, 50, has lived with the uncertainty of not knowing what happened to her son Corrie, who was 23 years old when he vanished on September 24, 2016, for the past three years.

Corrie vanished on a night out in Bury St Edmunds, after he was asked to leave a nightclub due to being too drunk.

He was last seen in a cul-de-sac where several wheelie bins were left on the pavement, and one theory probed by police was that he might have climbed inside one.

No trace of Corrie's body has ever been found, despite extensive searches of a landfill site in Suffolk near RAF Honington where he served.

Tragically, his girlfriend April Oliver, then aged 21, discovered she was pregnant after Corrie vanished.

On the third anniversary of Corrie's disappearance, his devastated mum Nicola told how even the discovery of a body would not provide 'closure' for the family.

Mum-of-three Nicola said: "I don't need Corrie's body to get closure.

Nicola Urquhart, 50, has lived with the uncertainty of not knowing what happened to her son Corrie, who was 23 years old when he vanished on September 24, 2016, for the past three years.

"For me, if somebody came up to me with his body, that is not going to give me closure because I'm never going to know every answer.

"It's a word we use maybe thinking it helps people but, for me, closure doesn't exist.

"I just need to find a way of living with that.

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"I don't mean existing, I mean living it.

"Having nice days, doing nice things, but that doesn't mean we're not still grieving.

"Bad things happen all the time and I can't control that.

"But I can control myself and how I'm going to cope with it and I'll appreciate what I have."

And she told how her son had faced his own battles with mental health - but felt able to address them with his employers.

Corrie experienced tragedy at first hand when he was 16-years-old after seeing his best friend get hit by a train.

Nicola said: "He realised that at any moment things can change just dramatically in our lives so I will live every moment but he would always talk about how he was feeling.

"The year before he disappeared a relationship broke down.

"He asked for help from the RAF - they gave him medication, a counsellor, took his firearm off him, put him on restricted duties.

"They did everything to him to get the help he needed.

"He took things slowly for a while.

"He had the foresight to get help before it ever got to the point where he felt he couldn't cope."

Former police worker Nicola, from Dunfermline, Fife, has taken steps to address her own mental health in the wake of the tragedy, along with sons Darroch, 24, and Makeyan.

She said: "There was a time when we were handing out leaflets in Bury St Edmunds town centre.

"Darroch said something that made Makeyan laugh, and as soon as he did you could see he thought he shouldn't be doing that.

"The two of them were looking to see if someone saw him laugh.

"I said, 'No, that is not going to happen, we will not do a public-we-are-grieving as a show'.

"If we're upset we'll be upset.

"If we're happy we'll be happy.

"We'll just wear our emotions on our sleeve.

"Otherwise, that could turn to a hidden face you are keeping from people.

"If we can find something to be happy about, just laugh.

"That's exactly what we've done since then.

"Anywhere we have found joy, does not mean we're devastated that Corrie is not here, but it also doesn't mean that we can't get the best of what we have left."

She added: "When you lose something it doesn't matter what it is, through grief you still have to find a way to cope with it."