The Disappearance of Ben Needham

Ben Needham disappeared at just 1 years old from the Greek Island of Kos. He disappeared on 24th July 1991. Almost 27 years ago.

Ben's Disappearance

Ben Needham and his family were staying on the Greek Island of Kos. Ben's grandparents had a home in the village of Iraklis. Ben disappeared on the 24th July 1991. On the day Ben disappeared he was under the care of his grandparents while his mum went to work at the local hotel. Ben had been coming in and out of a farmhouse that his family were renovating when at around 2:30pm they noticed that Ben had gone missing.

The family searched in the area for Ben assuming that he had just wandered off or that Stephen (Ben's teenage uncle) had taken him out on his moped. When the family were unable to find Ben, they notified the police. The police began by questioning the family, starting them off as suspects, but this only delayed the notification of airports and docks of Ben's disappearance. Over the course of 11 days searches of the area were carried out by Hellenic Police, Hellenic Army and fire brigade personnel. The Islands chief of police said "We now believe we have searched every possible part of that area and the boy is not there. It leaves us with great mystery. We have no theories. We have no solutions." Under a request from the UK prime minister John Major, the Hellenic Army carried out further searches in January 1993.

Alleged Sightings

Over 300 sightings of Ben have been reported both on the Greek mainland and the Greek islands. Most of these sightings were reported shortly after Ben's disappearance during 1991 and 1992. In December 1995 a private investigator (Stratos Bakirtzis) found a blonde boy around 6 years old living with a gypsy family in Salonika, Greece. Stratos told a Greek TV Network that the boy had been given to the gypsies because his parents did not want him. The police took the young boy into custody but it turned out not to be Ben. The child's birth certificate was authentic and his father was currently in prison and had left him with the gypsy couple.

November 1998, John Cookson saw a blonde boy around the age of 10 playing on a beach in Rhodes. John said that the child was known as 'the blonde one' by his friends and was the only fair haired child in the group. John became suspicious and took photos of the children and used tousling (made the child's hair messy) to be able to get a hair sample for DNA analysis. Unfortunately, DNA testing proved that the boy was not Ben. A Greek family provided infant photos to prove he was their child.

In October 2003, Ian Crosby made a visit to Kos with Ben's uncle Danny. They met with police while they were there. Ian was sent a photo in 1999 from a holidaymaker who had visited Turkey, who remembers seeing a number of Turkish children including one blonde boy who resembled the age progression photo of what Ben may have looked like at age 13.

Further Information

Ben's family believe that he was kidnapped with the intention of selling him for adoption or that he may have been taken by child traffickers. Carol Sarler who was writing in The Times in 2007 said: "I have repeatedly asked police and press, British and Greek, for a single example to support this rumour. There is none. When pretty little Western European kiddies go missing... we know about it; if we don't know, it isn't happening. Those of us who properly investigated Ben's disappearance are certain he was not [abducted]; put bluntly, a child less than 2, toddling unsupervised for five hours on a baking, remote, inhospitable hillside that is still largely unsearched, is easy prey to the lonely accident."

In September 1992, South Yorkshire police used electronic facial identification technique (E-FIT) software to be able to produce an image of how Ben may appear at 3 years old. The picture was printed onto posters that were displayed at airports and around Greek Islands. This is thought to be the first time E-FIT has been used to age a person's appearance. More images were created and distributed in March 2000, June 2003, October 2007 and September 2016.

Recent Findings

In September 2016, police informed Kerry Needham (Ben's Mother) that they had learned that a man from Kos said that Konstantinos Barkas (a digger operator, now deceased) told him that Ben had died in an accident and he had hidden Ben's body in a building waste. 16th September 2016 police began a search for the remains, excavations were focused around a tree, which had been planted since Ben disappeared. A replica of the sandals Ben had been wearing was being made to see if they matched any items that were found. The work ended on 16th October 2016. Over 800 tonnes of soil had been dug up and any items of interest were sent back to the UK for forensic analysis.

DI Cousins said that one item in particular which had been found was 'close to an item dated to 1991' had been identified by Ben's family as being in Ben's possession at the time he went missing. DI Cousins said: "My team and I know that machinery, including a large digger, was used to clear an area of land on 24 July 1991, behind the farmhouse that was being renovated by the Needhams. It is my professional belief that Ben Needham died as a result of an accident near to the farmhouse in Iraklis where he was last seen playing. The recovery of this item, and its location, further adds to my belief that material was removed from the farmhouse on or shortly after the day that Ben disappeared."

In July 2017, South Yorkshire police announced that traces of blood were found of a fragment of a sandal, as well as being on soil from inside a toy, which are both believed to belong to Ben. The head of the British soil forensics group said the team discovered a genetic 'profile indicative of human blood decomposition' on the piece of sandal and that the following step is to extract the DNA to determine who the blood belongs to. Jon Cousins says these findings further strengthen the theory that Ben was killed the day he disappeared and has been buried in Kos.

Statements from Kerry Needham

"He could have ended this 25 years ago. I could have grieved, had my daughter. You never forget your child but at least I would have known where he was. I could have done something with my life."

“This is the first time we’ve got conclusive evidence that he died on the day he disappeared.”

“This confirms what the police have been saying all along. My Ben was killed in an ­accident. But it also suggests that not only did they kill my boy and bury him where the toy car was found, they then moved him before police got to the site last October.What kind of human being does that? It just infuriates me. How can they do such a thing? He was definitely wearing those sandals that day. They were the only ones we could keep on his feet.”

I really hope that the DNA testing comes back with result that helps put Ben Needham to rest. To give the closure to the family that they need. It seems like such a terrible accident happened to Ben and it is a shame it has taken almost 27 years to come close to an answer on what happened. If Konstantinos Barkas did accidentally kill and bury Ben, he should have come forward so many years ago for the family's sake.