The Mystery of Ben Needham

There was one particular thing on one of the earlier photos that I specifically looked for on Google Earth,  Andrew and Seahorse, and I got there in the end. It was 50 per cent graft and 50  per cent luck, but for reasons that I may explain in due course I am keeping the location to myself and two others at present, both of whom are members of this forum but who rarely post. Please bear with me on that and thank you for your positive comments. I hope you and others are now beginning to realise that my motives are sincere.  For the record, I do not, have not and will not send abusive PMs to anyone, and I do not have any other identities on this forum doing likewise either. Sleep well everyone

Why would you keep the source of said photos to yourself, suma.

Don't get that. At all.

Andrew wrote:Hi Poster.. Personally, I think it's a lot more simple than that.

See post about the 'missing'.

The more I think about it, the more sadly I go with that theory.

Just my thoughts.

I couldn't find the post. But an accident that was covered up is quite a simple theory, irrespective of the type of accident - on a building site, on the back of a moped, in a pool. Where-ever.

What is the missing theory?

Andrew's post about The Missing (TV programme) is here at 11.21 yesterday.

Hi poster.

The missing theory, or tv prog should I say was what i quoted. I think, in a roundabout way.

It (to me),sort of mirrors what 'might' of happened.

'Might'.

You will see from the relatively recent photos  I posted that up the hill from the farmhouse   leads to  a hilly wilderness. Down the hill it is a 20 minute walk to the T junction with no side roads on the way. It would even be risky to try to escape down the hill with a car containing someone else' s kid -  anything coming up the hill could block the exit route.  And the road was just a track back in 1991. How would it be possible to carry out an abduction in all those circumstances?

Sat.. did you hop over to Kos yesterday and took those photo's yourself....

Still intrigued why you can't say anything (but PM'd a couple of posters who don't post, about it)....

Spill the beans old chap.

Because I can do what I like, Andrew. But thanks for showing an interest, the photos do indeed appear to tell a big story

Satsuma wrote:Because I can do what I like, Andrew

Of course you can. You do make me laugh, Sat.

Great stuff.

Satsuma wrote:You will see from the relatively recent photos  I posted that up the hill from the farmhouse   leads to  a hilly  wilderness. Down the hill it is a 20 minute walk to the T junction with no side roads on the way. It would even be risky to try to escape down the hill with a car containing someone else' s kid -  anything coming up the hill could block the exit route.  And the road was just a track back in 1991. How would it be possible to carry out an abduction in all those circumstances?

Even Kerry says in her book that it seems impossible because it's a dead end.

Here's a reconstruction from 1995, from 2.42 min.:

The way that video was put together hints at road accident (involving persons unknown) rather than abduction

They searched high and low for Ben. Surely they must have searched the garden of the villa opposite. The lady there was home all day. Didn't she come out to ask what all the commotion was about. Or why did they not knock on her door then. Michaelis could have asked if she'd seen anything, anything at all.

When the police asked the lady in the evening apparently she'd seen Stephen take off on his motorbike and Ben playing outside. Ben went missing shortly after.

In 2012 there was a theory that he may have wandered off and had an accident at the building site along the road (in the downhill direction from the farmhouse). We know from the book that Christine passed a construction site on her walk. It gets a mention. The site was dug up and nothing found. But if an accident had occurred there in  1991, the body may have been taken elsewhere. Now the police are back on Kos. Just speculation on my part

I don't know if this is the villa that was being constructed at the time but it's only just down the lane from the farmhouse



It's at the top of this aerial view, the farmhouse is near the bottom,  with the stone house over the road in the extreme bottom right of the photo

It's the 25th anniversary of whatever happened to Ben.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ben-needhams-mum-tells-enduring-8481369#ICID=sharebar_twitter

http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2016-07-24/25-years-of-torment-family-of-ben-needham-mark-anniversary-of-disappearance/

Snipped:

"Significant" leads emerged from that trip, which are still being investigated. The Home Office is funding the team until the end of October, after granting a six-month extension to the investigation earlier this year.

So they both (Madeleine) got 6 month extensions then....

Both potentially concluding at the same time as well....

I suspect that the Home Office know full well that neither will ever be found.

We know that the McCanns have garnered high level support, for whatever reason, but, given that in my opinion Ben died on the day he 'disappeared' (probably in a road accident) I wonder who protected the Needhams? The villa owner where the male Needhams were doing building work scarpered from the island pretty quickly, I wonder whether he too was 'in the know' about what happened?

I used to think that it might only be the male members of the family (and the villa owner?) who knew what had happened to Ben but when I read Kerry's description in her book of the events of the day that Ben disappeared, the account did not ring true. In some ways reminiscent of Kate's description of events leading up to Madeleine's disappearance. There was something not right about the description.

She describes going into a panic when she finds Ben missing and searching everywhere which is to be expected.

But she then describes how she then makes an assumption that Ben has gone off on the back of his young Uncle's moped. And so she stops looking.

That doesn't make sense. And in any event putting a toddler on the back of a teenagers moped is as pretty high risk as it gets, imo. So if Kerry really did relax to the extent of not bothering to look for Ben or find out where he was on the basis that he had gone off on the back of a teenager's moped then she is either incredibly dim or - what is more likely I expect - she too suspects/knows what really happened.

Probably easier to live with the fantasy that your child might be found one day than with the reality that they never will be.

IMO only.

But I do think it is a scandal that so much money has been ploughed into these cases when in my opinion there are people at high levels who know that neither of these children (and of course Ben would now be an adult) will ever be found.

Kerry wasn't there at the time when Ben was found to be missing. Are you thinking of her mother's version of events?

Ben Needham investigation breakthrough as cops probe new witness claims

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ben-needham-investigation-breakthrough-cops-8845583#ICID=ios_TMNewsApp_AppShare_Click_Other

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3791887/Ben-Needham-breakthrough-Police-tell-missing-boy-s-mother-believe-crushed-digger-Greek-island-Kos-1991.html

Ben Needham breakthrough: Police tell missing boy's mother to 'prepare for the worst' as new hunt for his body to start in WEEKS to discover if he was crushed by a digger on Kos in 1991


http://news.sky.com/story/ben-needham-toddler-may-have-been-crushed-by-digger-10579729

British investigators on Kos believe Ben may have been crushed to death by a digger, Kerry Needham said.

A friend of digger driver Konstantinos Barkas - known as Dino - came forward following an appeal on Greek TV and said he believed the workman was responsible for the 21-month-old boy's death, the Daily Mirror reported.

The death is said to have been accidental.

Mr Barkas reportedly died from stomach cancer in 2015, just months before South Yorkshire Police detectives renewed the investigation on the island.

He apparently had not told detectives he had been working on the two sites which are due to be searched.

Ms Needham had been hoping she would be reunited with her son, but said her worst fears appeared to have been confirmed following a visit by police officers.

She told the newspaper: "What they had to tell me was the last thing they would have ever wanted to. They think my Ben could be dead and buried.

"They are no longer looking for a missing person. How do I cope with that? My mother's instinct has always told me he was alive.

"What if I've been wrong all this time?"

Ben, from Sheffield, disappeared from outside Ms Needham's parents' home on Kos on 24 July, 1991.

Mr Barkas had reportedly been helping to clear land for a local builder near the property.

Experts have apparently tested soil and surveyed the site using drones.



Looks like the endgame in this tragic (but albeit a bit strange) case...

.... So 'Dino' accidentally killed Ben according to his mate 25 years later......

Really? A likely story? Or a 'patsy' to put things to bed.

I often thought whether they had to 'close' this case off before the McCann case.

Well Andrew, the photos I posted in May show that an accident connected with building site just down the road from the house is by far the most likely explanation. But it seems strange that after 25 years, the alleged perpetrator would only be "conclusively" identified shortly after his own death

Remember too that this is his friend that has come forward, not the police.

I think that for anything definitively to be concluded, they would have to find his body. Otherwise it's just another case of speculation based on hearsay.

canada12 wrote:I think that for anything definitively to be concluded, they would have to find his body. Otherwise it's just another case of speculation based on hearsay.

That's very true too.
What if he's under the driveway? Can police dig if the owners disagree?