Corrie Mckeague: Search widened for airman missing for a month

Corrie Mckeague vanished after a night out with friends in Bury St Edmunds on 24 September

Specialist RAF officers have widened the search for missing airman Corrie Mckeague.

The gunner, 23, based at Suffolk's RAF Honington, vanished a month ago after a night out in Bury St Edmunds.

Officers have been scouring hedgerows and ditches between the A134 and A143 on the town outskirts.

Meanwhile, a retired police chief has said foul play cannot be ruled out as detectives continue to investigate a possible sighting of Mr Mckeague.

Suffolk Police said on Monday they were looking at a suspected sighting by a driver on the Hollow Road Industrial Estate.

The person in light clothes was spotted less than an hour after Mr Mckeague was last seen on CCTV walking alone and eating fast food in Brentgovel Street at about 03:20 BST on 24 September.

Police said a man in a black T-shirt with white writing on, who Mr Mckeague spoke to in Pizza Mama Mia on the morning he disappeared, has now been traced and spoken to.

Colin Sutton, a former Metropolitan Police detective chief inspector who worked on the Milly Dowler case and other high-profile inquiries, told BBC Radio Suffolk officers needed to focus on where Mr McKeague was last seen.

"His last sighting shows him going into an area where his only logical and reasonable way out is back past the same camera again," he said.

"You never give up hope in these cases, but the longer it goes on the more I would fear for what happened."

Officers are continuing to appeal for anyone who may have seen him in the early hours of 24 September and anyone who may have seen him since, or anyone with information about his whereabouts, to come forward.

It is thought the airman, originally from Dunfermline in Fife, intended to walk home to the base.

Air, ground and dog searches have already been made around Bury and the routes out of it.