Girlfriend of RAF gunner who vanished after a night out in September reveals she is expecting his child 

• Serviceman went missing after a night out near his base in East Anglia last year
• Neither he nor his mobile phone has since been found despite huge search
• His girlfriend has now revealed that she is pregnant with the airman's baby
• Neither she nor her boyfriend knew of the pregnancy when he went missing

The girlfriend of an RAF serviceman who vanished on a night out has revealed she is expecting his child. 

April Oliver said she became pregnant during a five-month relationship with Corrie Mckeague, who went missing in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk last year.

Miss Oliver revealed that neither she nor Mr Mckeague, 23, from Dunfermline, Fife, had any idea she was pregnant when he went missing.

The 21-year-old personal trainer discovered she was expecting in October - just weeks after her boyfriend's mysterious disappearance on September 24.

He was last seen in Bury St Edmunds town centre on CCTV at 3.25am and neither he nor his mobile phone have since been found. 

Miss Oliver told the BBC: 'I've had to make a make a massive decision by myself. I was hoping and praying that he'd come back so we could make it together.

'I have the support of my family and friends around me which is great but it's still not the most pleasant thing to go through on your own especially when the person you love is missing.

'I've given it a great deal of thought. Obviously there is the element of "what if he didn't come back?" what would I do and that was something I had to take a sensible approach to.

'When I found out, although it was a horrible time and something I wished I could experience with him, it was also something I was excited about.

'Given the stress that I've been under, the pregnancy has gone really well. I'm just doing anything I can not to add to the pressure I'm already under.'

She said she was on holiday in America when the gunner based at RAF Honington, Suffolk, went missing and had seen him shortly before she left. 

Asked about the moment she discovered he was missing, she said: 'I had only been there a few days when I got the call from the RAF boys asking if I'd seen him or heard from him, that's when I knew that he was missing. I very quickly got a plane home.

'At that point I wasn't entirely sure what had happened to him. It was completely out of character. I found out I was pregnant a couple of weeks after I came back.'

She is expecting their baby to be born in late spring or early summer this year. The couple had been together for about five months after meeting on a dating site.

Miss Oliver said she had decided to speak about her pregnancy so that she could focus on looking after herself and her baby without any intrusion.

She said: 'Most people only tell their close friends but I'm faced with a decision where I need to tell near enough the whole UK.

'It's hard and it's going to add another level of stress I don't really need but it's something that has to be done.'

Mr Mckeague's police constable mother, Nicola Urquhart, said she had to balance the joy of becoming a grandmother for the first time with the continued uncertainty about her son's whereabouts.

Mrs Urquhart, a family liaison officer with Police Scotland, added: 'It's something that somebody would normally want to keep quiet to make sure everything's ok but it's getting to the stage now where there are far too many people starting to notice and ask questions.

'That's why we felt now is the time that we do have to let people know so that we can draw a line under it so April can enjoy her pregnancy safely without any additional stress.

'I was at the scan with April and I don't think anybody could see that and not be affected by it.

'But it's incredibly difficult to bounce my head from the excitement of a new baby to what we're actually trying to focus on which is finding Corrie.'

Suffolk Police have been searching in vain for Corrie since he vanished.

Officers at first feared he might have tried to walk home to his base at RAF Honington from Bury St Edmunds.

It is believed that he went into a horseshoe shaped area used for the storage of waste bins, but CCTV cameras did not show him leaving.

His family have hired private detectives to look at clues in the case after friends launched a crowd funding appeal for them.

They are desperate to find his mobile phone which is still missing.

The signal of the phone went to Barton Mills near Mildenhall, Suffolk, indicating that it was carried on a vehicle.

The track of the phone matched the movements of a bin lorry which was later impounded by police but no clues were found on board.