The father of missing serviceman Corrie McKeague has revealed a bitter family split in the wake of his son’s mystery disappearance.
Heartbroken Martin McKeague now has no contact with his two other sons, Makeyan, 26, and Darroch, 21, following two heated family rows.
He says the pair have refused to answer his phone calls or respond to his texts since the arguments a few days after RAF Regiment gunner Corrie, 23, went missing in September.
Almost five months on, Martin is distraught that all three of his boys are missing from his life, the Daily Record reported .
Martin, who split from his sons’ mum Nicola Urquhart 14 years ago, said: “When something terrible happens, you hope your family will pull together. But we have fallen apart.
“The boys are in bits about whatever has happened to their brother and I’m in bits too.
“The last time I saw Makeyan and Darroch, it was emotional. We were upset, things started to get heated and I had to walk away.
“But before I left we hugged and I told them I loved them. I never imagined we wouldn’t speak again.”
Martin, who lives in Cupar, Fife, with wife Trisha, 54, says they would do anything to be reunited with his sons.
Yesterday it emerged police searching for Corrie, who was brought up in Dunfermline, have traced a potential witness.
They are speaking to a cyclist who was seen on CCTV in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, around the same time as Corrie disappeared after a night out.
Martin, who works as a deck supervisor in the oil industry, added: “I was working in Malta when Corrie went missing.
“He vanished in the early hours of Saturday but he wasn’t reported missing until he failed to show up for work on Monday.
“Trisha got a call from Nicola on the Monday night and she immediately called me.”
Martin returned home to Scotland on the Wednesday after Corrie’s disappearance and went straight to police officer Nicola’s home with Trisha and a friend.
He said: “Nicola gave us lots of information about what the police had told her and about what else she knew.”
Three days later, the family travelled to Bury St Edmunds.
They retraced Corrie’s last known steps and met search and rescue volunteers who were combing nearby woodland.
But after Martin and Trisha returned to Scotland, they were shocked to learn Nicola, Makeyan and Darroch were about to make a family appeal for information at a police press conference.
Most Read
Martin said: “I should have been there, but I didn’t know anything about the conference until 10 minutes before it happened and Darroch called to let me know.”
Martin and Trisha returned to Bury St Edmunds, where they met Martin’s sons.
He told them the police had telephoned him directly for the first time, asking to meet him to discuss the investigation.
And while he doesn’t want to go into the detail of their row, he said there was a heated exchange.
Martin said: “I’d had a row with Darroch before heading back to Scotland the first time. When I met the boys after going back down to England we rowed again.
“I’ve always been close to all three of my boys and I could see how much they were hurting.
“I had to leave to go off and meet the police, as had been arranged.
“We hugged but from that day they haven’t spoken to me. They have turned against me and I don’t understand why.
“I’m only speaking out about it because it’s become obvious that there is a divide in Corrie’s family and I want to put the record straight.”
Just two weeks after Corrie went missing, his girlfriend April Oliver, 21, who was in the US at the time he vanished, discovered that she was pregnant.
Martin revealed the lengths he and his family have gone to in backing the efforts to find his son.
He said: “Trisha and I have backed the investigation being carried out by Suffolk Police every step of the way.
“I’ve traded in my Jeep for a motorhome and we have been travelling up and down to Bury St Edmunds all the time to search for Corrie and encourage anyone with information to come forward.
“We’ve taken part in searches, we’ve done leaflet drops for information, we have handed out appeal posters.
“We have done the media appeals the police have asked us to do, and we’ve shaken hands and thanked the volunteers who have been out searching.
“We’ve stood in the town centre on Friday and Saturday nights stopping people in the hope that they might have been out on the Friday night Corrie disappeared and might have seen something, anything that might help.
“On Christmas Day, we went to the horseshoe area where he was last seen, just to be there.
“Myself, Corrie’s grandparents and my two brothers have offered a five-figure reward for any information that leads to us finding Corrie. My parents even travelled down to show their support and do what they can to help find their grandson.
“We have never asked the public for money, we have only ever supported the police, and we never supported the use of Corrie’s photo on an online gambling site to generate any sort of publicity or funds for whatever cause.”
Martin added that the pain the family were going through over Corrie’s disappearance had been “indescribable”.
Don’t miss
He said: “At first I feared the worst over Corrie’s disappearance. Then as time went on and no body was found I actually started to feel hope.
“When the police told us last week they were going to start searching the landfill site, it was a real body blow.
“To be honest, I’ve struggled to cope with the news.
“There were two council bins removed from the area where Corrie was last seen in the early hours of the Monday morning – before he was reported missing.
“A private refuse lorry had taken away one of their bins in the early hours of the Saturday morning and we know Corrie wasn’t in that bin, because it weighs all the collections and it was far too light for him to be in the bin, although his phone may have been.
“But council bin lorries don’t weigh the bins they collect. Was it possible that Corrie was in one of those bins? That’s what we need to know.
“Searching the landfill site will be a biblical task, it is so huge, and all we can do is wait – and it’s a gruelling, agonising, gut-wrenching kind of waiting.
“We just want answers about what happened to our boy, and we want him back.”