The Mystery of Ben Needham

Ah, here we are - a Scandinavian enters the scene with a video-recorder.

Christine Needham noticed a woman of Scandinavian appearance taking video-footage of Ben as he played by the pool at the Palm Beach hotel in June or July 1991 just before he went missing.

Kerry Needham worked at this hotel from the summer of 1991 until 13th November 2015.




https://m.facebook.com/helpfindben/photos/a.1130258763669197.1073741887.166769390018144/1130034323691641/?type=3

I don't blame them. The story strikes me as almost as absurd as the 'abduction'.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/22/family-of-digger-driver-take-legal-action-against-ben-needhams-m/

I see the mystery Scandinavian/s surface again.

Meanwhile, 14 people in involved in the search for Ben appear to be having 'fun in the sun'.


Someone appears to be laughing their head off, perhaps unsurprisingly.

Kerry is quoted in response to the news in the story: We are supposed to be trying to find the answers to what happened to Ben along with these detectives, and this could just hinder it. And I'm angry this report had to come out, it is just not nice.'



Just how much longer are police going to spend not 'finding the answers to what happened to Ben?'


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3585616/Return-Sunshine-Squad-Booze-ice-cream-British-cops-Kos-1m-hunt-missing-Ben-Needham.html

How awful, the police officers felt that they were off duty and were entitled to have an ice cream and a couple of pints.  

I have always thought that Ben's family did not realise that he had vanished until he had been gone for hours, and did not want to admit the fact that no one had noticed that he was missing, so came up with a story of how they had noticed instantly, but then did not alert anyone.

I am not sure I believe the digger driver story, why would the digger driver need to cover up the death of a toddler who should not have been there? How can he be blamed for not seeing a small child?

Going over the Someone Knows documentary again - At 39:11 mins the hypnosis session gets interesting.

"Got off my bike"
"Just left my bike"
"Just don`t know what to do"
"I`ll just sit in the dirt"
"Stay here forever"
"Head in my hands"
"Why me"
"Why did this happen to me"

But narrator says that S said it was not a real memory.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1855345/ben-needham-disappearance-search-timeline-latest-theories-appeal/

From yesterday's Sun.

Bampots wrote:https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1855345/ben-needham-disappearance-search-timeline-latest-theories-appeal/

From yesterday's Sun.

The more I read about this case the more I think that the Needhams knew from the outset what happened but panicked. There are also an eerie number of parallels with the McCann case, imo.

1. The insistence on abduction.
2. A delay in contacting police.
3. Conflicting accounts of what happened and when at the time of the alleged abduction.
4. Criticism of the local police investigation.
5. Criticism of the country.
6. An overly friendly relationship with the UK police forces involved in the respective investigations (Leics police and S. Yorks).
7. Repeated visits by U.K. police to these holiday destinations despite no obvious progress being made at all.
8. An insistence on the 'abducted' person being alive without any evidence and in fact evidence to the contrary.
9. A strong rallying around if family members and close friends where you might reasonably expect dissention and some suspicions/blame.
10. A lack of logic in terms of the accounts of the circumstances of the disappearances. In the Needham case the family allegedly search anxiously and then stop after an hour as the assumption comes to them that Ben went off with his Uncle on his moped. Why the previous hour searching then? Illogical. In the McCann case the parents leave the children as the consider they are at zero risk (as Kate writes) yet within minutes of finding Madeleine missing the parents assume she has been abducted. This is completely illogical as it contradicts their own belief system.
11. In the immediate hours after the alleged abductions the families only search briefly. The Needhams allegedly search for an hou round the farmhouse then stop. Why didn't they continue throughout the afternoon until they found Ben? In the McCann case the parents didn't search at all and the friends, by their own admission, ran around helplessly. There would be one obvious reason for this.
12. I can't help but notice that a pram makes an entrance into both narratives at a key time and place in terms of the alleged abductions. In the Needham case, Ben's grandmother claims that following the hour's search around the farmhouse she walks back to her home with an empty pram hoping she might bump into Stephen and Ben en route. This is an interesting addition and I think relevant to understanding what might have happened, when and even where. In the McCann case at the very time that Madeleine's alleged abductor is supposed to have been casing the joint (there are suggestions s/he was hiding in the room when GM checked at just after 9pm) the father of the missing child allegedly bumps into a fellow guest at the hotel pushing a pram around. I have always found this extraordinary addition to the story hugely suspicious and again I think it might reveal clues as to what happened and when or possibly what was supposed to happen.

All imo but there does seem to be script.

Having said all that I have far more sympathy for the Needhams as I think there was a tragic accident and probably a panic decision was made, possibly in part to protect Kerry.

In the McCann case I think there was a cynical hoax to cash in on the media furore that can follow the disappearance of a photogenic child in apparently safe and congenial surroundings. The Mcs and their friends bodged it, imo, because there are some darker secrets surrounding this particular case. Hence the very high levels of protection afforded them. What I find repugnant about the Madeleine case is how it seems to me that the parents and the vultures who advised them appear to have cherry-picked (good media ploy?) elements from other missing children cases and superimposed them into their own narrative.

So we have a photograph of Madeleine in a football shirt which is bound to evoke memories of the Soham case despite a football shirt photograph of Madeleine having no apparent relevance to helping to find her. The early poster of Madeleine evoke,  imo, images of the posters of Ben when he disappeared. A cherubic child with an innocent gaze. While the poster of Ben I am sure was a true likeness it is beyond dispute that the poster of Madeleine was not. It shows a chil who looks younger than nearly four with an eye defect that the parents later claim Madeleine didn't have. And despite the parents allegedly having a photo of Madeleine taken on the day she disappeared, they do not use this for reasons they never explained.

[size=36]http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/good-morning-britain-viewers-tears-9014506[/size]

To get the link to work, you'll need to copy it without the accompanying guff.

I dont put guff on.....no idea why it happens..  but iam aware it must be summat i do.....help!!

Normally I can delete the guff but not on this occasion.

Are you using a proxy server? I think that this happened recently with someone who was but I don't know why that causes it.

I used the quote button and managed to edit it.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/good-morning-britain-viewers-tears-9014506

Heisenburg wrote:
I used the quote button and managed to edit it.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/good-morning-britain-viewers-tears-9014506

Well, what can one say? Needham family still hanging on in there and feeling that they would not have got this far without S. Yorks Police. Despite it would seem no progress in the case for so long....

But there are others who are not so into S. Yorks Police:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/30/south-yorkshire-police-scrap-it-and-start-over-hillsborough-miners-strike-rotherham

That article ( over a year old) referencing issues some over 50 years old is hardly balanced 

I could walk out into my town centre now and find 5 people all complaining about the local police I would also find 5 people praising the police. I could therefore write three articles one saying that my local force is dreadful another saying it is wonderful and a third more truthful one
I was talking to a police officer yesterday ,some of his local residents had started a petition to have him sacked from his job. Not because he is no good,but because he is too good , other residents seeing this groups activities disrupted will think him wonderful

candyfloss wrote:A toy car found.....

Well - this from page story tells the truth, imo. Ben died on the day he went missing as a result of an accident. I think all the family know this too.

The family's story doesn't make sense and yes I agree that they must know what happened - maybe not Kerry - but why not just be honest about it? Children have terrible accidents all the time, sadly.

Presumably the Greek farmhouse owner (now dead) knew what happened too and it's hard to imagine how he would agree to go along with the family's cover-up.

If one day it is proved that the family knew all along, how ever will Kerry forgive them?

I think they probably panicked and took the wrong path,by the time they realised this it was too late to go back. IMO the same as another family

Freedom wrote:The family's story doesn't make sense and yes I agree that they must know what happened - maybe not Kerry - but why not just be honest about it? Children have terrible accidents all the time, sadly.

Presumably the Greek farmhouse owner (now dead) knew what happened too and it's hard to imagine how he would agree to go along with the family's cover-up.

If one day it is proved that the family knew all along, how ever will Kerry forgive them?

I think people make bad decisions in a time of panic and as time goes on it becomes increasingly difficult to tell the truth.
I'm sure this is what happened in the McCann case, with thee added complication of their personalities and being unable to admit any wrong.

Mimi wrote:Going over the Someone Knows documentary again - At 39:11 mins the hypnosis session gets interesting.

"Got off my bike"
"Just left my bike"
"Just don`t know what to do"
"I`ll just sit in the dirt"
"Stay here forever"
"Head in my hands"
"Why me"
"Why did this happen to me"

But narrator says that S said it was not a real memory.

There really are a lot of parallels with the McCann case, imo. And notice how the idea comes to Eddie later in the evening that Ben has been abducted. He goes down to the docks to look into cars and feels helpless. This reminds me of the running around like headless chickens scenario that friends of the McCanns describe and how they all seemed to feel so helpless. Feeling helpless would suggest that you know there is nothing that can be done. I would suggest that in both cases it was known from the outset that nothing could be done to find the child alive.

Stephen at the 11.23 mark onwards in the clip above is somewhat worrying, imo. He appears amused which in the context is an inappropriate reaction and I would say is hugely suggestive of deceit. Not sure if he is demonstrating duper's delight or just embarrassment.

niklasericson wrote:I have always a bad feeling when they are going to "investigate" dead "suspects".
It's a easy way out, just like Ben Needham.

I don't think the Police mentioned the digger driver at all in the Ben Needham case....I think they even apologised to his family because of what our press were doing?

Yes but Det Insp Jon Cousins, who led the excavation in Kos, said: “Based on those facts and the information I have to date, it is still my professional belief that Ben died as a result of a tragic incident at the farmhouse involving heavy machinery."
He was indirectly accused for his death and that's enough for get the case cold.

I took that to be referring to those at the farmhouse. Remember that in Kerry's own book/website it is claimed the digger driver and workmates had left their site by around midday (IIRC). EN could have "borrowed" the digger to dig the foundation that we saw him show SYP last year and then something happened..

Anyone have a link to the full official SYP press release? I remember it had a black background and looked like it was from a early eighties DOS computer!

Today's posts transferred from the latest silly tabloid story topic.

An accident involving heavy machinery is one of the likeliest answers in my opinion but not involving anyone who is now conveniently dead.

Freedom wrote:Today's posts transferred from the latest silly tabloid story topic.

An accident involving heavy machinery is one of the likeliest answers in my opinion but not involving anyone who is now conveniently dead.

Yep,either horse play or borrowed with knowledge,Cousins never mentioned the driver did he?