The Mystery of Ben Needham

Andrew wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3838650/They-never-Greek-detectives-searched-Ben-Needham-1991-say-latest-1m-search-FLAWED-searched-dig-site-TWICE.html

EXCLUSIVE - 'They will never find him': Greek detectives who searched for Ben Needham in 1991 say latest £1m search is FLAWED because they have already searched dig site TWICE

21-month-old Ben Needham disappeared from the Greek island of Kos
South Yorkshire Police re-opened its investigation following a tip-off
The 'witness' claimed he knew that he had been crushed by a digger
However, Greek authorities are claiming the ongoing search is 'futile'


It was going to be the closure she had longed for.

Although heartbroken mother Kerry Needham had been warned to prepare for the worst, at least now she would finally learn the fate of her missing infant son Ben, 25 long years after he vanished.

A quarter of a century of false hopes, hoaxes, sightings that raised hopes and cruelly dashed them: He'd been taken by gypsies, sold to child traffickers, he was seen at Kos airport buying sweets with an older child.

Each misleading claim led Kerry on the same wild goose chase and the same sickeningly familiar sinking feeling when it turned out to be false.

Then, a precious lead emerged during 100 phone calls received by British investigators when Ben’s case was featured on a Greek missing persons television show earlier this year.

The tip-off was from a 'credible' witness said Ben had been killed in a terrible accident by a Greek digger driver, now deceased, who was doing building work next door to the property where Ben went missing in 1991.

Although they believed he was dead, at least now for Kerry, and Ben’s anxious grandparents Christine and Eddie, there would be closure.

A quarter of a century of hoaxes, false sightings that raised hopes and cruelly dashed them again; He'd been taken by gypsies, sold to child traffickers, he was spotted at Kos airport buying sweets with an older child, he was in Turkey, Germany, Athens.

But as they waited with bated breath, hardly daring to hope that an answer to the toddler’s disappearance might finally be found, there was a small group of people who knew the family would be left bitterly disappointed.

For the Greek detectives working on the original case 25 years ago had scoured every inch of the search area being pored over by South Yorkshire Police – twice.

They could only watch as the latest search unfolded, already knowing the answer to the hunt which had set such high hopes.

‘The British police will never find anything [from their current investigations],’ one of the original officers who took part in the 1991 search told MailOnline.

The retired policeman said they searched the whole area around the remote farmhouse at the time of the boy’s disappearance.

‘We thoroughly investigated all the areas that the British investigators are searching now at the time [1991] and nothing was found,’ he said.

‘We examined all scenarios of the disappearance of the young English boy and a full report of our findings was compiled and sent to police HQ consistent with an allegation of the abduction of a minor.

The investigation and the whole saga continues because the British have provided the money.

‘But the whole operation is futile.’

As lead investigator DI Jon Cousins from South Yorkshire agreed on Friday to the repair of the farmhouse ripped apart in the search for Ben, it appears - tragically - the Greek officer may be right.

In June this year a witness came forward claiming to know precisely what had happened on the afternoon of 24 July at a remote farmhouse in the hills over-looking the Aegean Sea where 21-month-old Ben had been playing.

The witness said that Ben was crushed under the wheels of a large JCB digger that was clearing land around the farmhouse which his grandfather Eddie had been renovating.

The driver – Konstantinos ‘Dinos’ Barkas – had not noticed the little blonde boy go under the wheels of his powerful machine through the clouds of dust that swirled around, he claimed.

And when he saw what he had done he could not bring himself to admit his part the boy’s death so buried him amid the hundreds of tonnes of earth that he was excavating.

Barkas was interviewed by police in the hours after Ben was reported missing in July 1991 and released.

But he was later seen in a distressed state ‘sweating and shaking’ when he returned from the police station, the witness claimed.

The death of Barkas from cancer the year before the latest appeal to Greeks had emboldened the whistle-blower to come forward, it is believed.

Alerted to the new information British detectives from South Yorkshire Police flew to Kos and spoke to the witness themselves.

Bank-rolled with a £1 million war chest from the Home Office a team of forensic investigators arrived on Kos in June this year and identified two areas where they believed Ben’s body could have been buried.

DI Cousins had already been on the case for over year – rifling through all the documents, reading all the witness statements and corroborating all the evidence. He even flew to Australia to verify one account.

Proudly wearing their jet black South Yorkshire Police uniforms DI Cousins and his team strung up ‘do not enter’ police tape around the Kos farmhouse where Ben was last seen.

Among the team is highly qualified anthropologist Gaille Mackinnon who has worked on the biggest forensic recoveries this century – including New York 9/11, London 7/7, and war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Sierra Leone.

And almost three weeks ago they began digging in the dry, dusty soil, looking for traces of Ben’s tiny bones.

The police warned his mother Kerry to expect the worst.

As bone fragments were unearthed by an olive grove close to the farmhouse Ms Needham broke down in tears on television as she explained how finding Ben’s body would finally give the family closure.

She told Good Morning Britain: ‘You know 25 years of living and not knowing where your child is, is torment.

‘I don't like to say it but then at least we would know and it would be closure - and he can be laid to rest and we can remember him as he was.'

The bones were not Ben’s – but the remains of ancient Greeks who had lived on the island some 3,000 years ago.

Now almost three weeks into the search South Yorkshire Police admit they have not found a single item directly linked to Ben Needham and no other evidence that the boy died under the wheels of a digger and that his body was buried nearby.

However as the British police operation reaches an unsuccessful conclusion the retired Greek officers display a grim satisfaction that DI Cousins and his team have failed.

The former officers also dismiss the idea that digger driver ‘Dinos’ had any part in Ben’s disappearance.

One retired officer said: ‘The digger driver [Dino Barkas] was very helpful from the beginning.

‘We interviewed him and he did not show any strange behaviour.

‘I remember searching the land around the farm house twice. There was a lot of soil to examine.

‘Barkas helped us excavate the area with his digger. By the end of his operation we were all white from the dust.’

The officer told MailOnline how he and his colleagues worked night and day for a week as part of a huge search operation in the hope of finding Ben.

He said: ‘The mobilisation was huge. From the morning of Ben’s disappearance all of the policemen and firemen on the island took part,

‘I remember the firemen climbing down the wells in the area with ladders.

‘They searched all the streams, ditches, everywhere the kid might have fallen into.

‘We searched a 1km wide radius around the mountain side and down to the sea.

‘We eliminated every possibility that Ben had wandered off by himself or had fallen somewhere.’

Former Kos Chief of Police Christos Bafounis declined to comment on the British police investigation when contacted by MailOnline.

But other officers who took part in the 1991 investigation have also dismissed the involvement of digger driver Barkas into Ben’s disappearance.

For his part DI Cousins refuses to criticise the Greek police – the officers who were in charge back in 1991 and the officers who are helping his team now.

However he maintains his team is searching in the right places to find answers about what happened to the 21-month-old boy.

DI Cousins told MailOnline: ‘I have reviewed, in great detail, every piece of evidence made available to me by the current Greek authorities, who are very supportive of the work we are doing in assisting their investigation.

‘This information was gathered as part of the initial investigation conducted by the Greek authorities at the time. In addition, I have had the opportunity to personally view hundreds of pieces of information, sourced by my team, from Greece and the rest of the world.

'As a result of the work that has been conducted over the last 18 months and direct information received after our successful appeal in May, I have no doubt that this phase of the operation is absolutely essential in order to get answers for Ben's family.’

froggy wrote:A prediction on how this might play out.

In a week or two, police will claim that they have found bone fragments that have tested positive to Ben's DNA, there by putting to rest any idea that he is alive.
They will further claim that their  primary suspect is dead and they can take the investigation no further.

The public will quickly forget all about the case and Yorkshire police can get back to fighting crime in Yorkshire.


If the public buy into this, expect to see something similar rolled out in the McCann case.

seahorse wrote:

Hope wrote:This may be daft but what about his nappy? Chris says he wet himself, she rinsed them and put them on the tree to dry. In a doc Eddie thought it was water from the hose but she corrects him, they say how he was just in sandals and his top. No mention of a nappy, disposable ones were very expensive in places like Greece 25 yrs ago. Did they use terry cloth ones or was he being toilet trained, very early but not impossible.

And in Kerry's book it says:

"Ben had discovered a water barrel and after he'd skimmed his cars along the surface he'd started scooping bowlfuls out to mix potions with dirt and leaves. When he tired of that, the next scoop was tipped straight over his own head.
I suppose it was pure instinct to try to cool down in that savage heat. Even so, the look of shock on Ben's face as the water soaked him made it look like he'd jumped into a shower of ice.
Stephen saw it happen and burst out laughing. Everyone else joined in when they saw the drowned rat dripping in front of them. That was enough for Ben. That boy lived for laughter. He thrived on it. So, uncomfortable as he was, what did he do?
Scooped another bowl of water onto his head.
The laughter was even louder this time, more so when he yelled, 'I'm so funny!' Of course, he carried on dousing himself until Mum put a stop to it and dried him off. She hung Ben's shorts from a tree to dry and told him not to get anything else ruined because there were no spares. Ben didn't care about wearing only a T-shirt and little buckled sandals any more that he did about being wet. He just loved being a showman."

Which one was it:
Wet himself?
Water hose?
Water barrel?

And what about his wet T-shirt?

TheTruthWillOut wrote:Wasn't it said Ben only had shorts on and no nappy? If that was case then it makes it all the more unlikely he would take Ben on the bike even though that itself is hard for me believe.

I can't see a 17 year old willingly taking Ben without anything on below the waist.

I have a couple of questions if someone here knows or has links. What has the lady at the farmhouse said she saw that day and a weird and probably completely irrelevant one...what did they have for lunch that day and how was it cooked? The farmhouse was derelict with no roof and doubt there was gas or electric. If they had a salad then this question is moot..  

Andrew wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/theyre-heroes-ben-needhams-mum-9055205

TheTruthWillOut wrote:

Andrew wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/theyre-heroes-ben-needhams-mum-9055205

Let me just say I'm shaking my head at that. Probably best not to say any more.

TheTruthWillOut wrote:

Thanks for that seahorse (will have to get a copy of the book)

It does highlight another thing I didn't know....Stephen went out twice on the bike that afternoon and both times after Christine, Ben and Danny had arrived at the farmhouse. It could be the lady across the street was talking about Stephen's shop run when she said she saw Ben playing at the farmhouse after Stephen left. Or is it clear in the book she was talking about him leaving the second time?