Greece Greece - Ben Needham, 21 mos, Isle of Kos, 24 July 1991

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CoverMeCagney said:
IF Ben is alive he is likely looks different to his mates (I've been to Greece a few times, and everyone I met was olive skinned and dark haired) so IF he's out there he should have wondered by now.
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According to Wikipedia, the population of Kos was around 33,000 in 2011. That's not a huge population by any means. The size of a smallish market town. I really find it incredibly difficult to believe that a blond toddler could be hidden by anyone for very long amongst so small a population on an island barely 40 miles by 5 miles in area.
 
MelmothTheLost said:
According to Wikipedia, the population of Kos was around 33,000 in 2011. That's not a huge population by any means. The size of a smallish market town. I really find it incredibly difficult to believe that a blond toddler could be hidden by anyone for very long amongst so small a population on an island barely 40 miles by 5 miles in area.
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Bit wouldn't that be permanent population, with a lot more visitors? (I admit I find it hard to believe he's still alive.)
 
Ellmau said:
Bit wouldn't that be permanent population, with a lot more visitors? (I admit I find it hard to believe he's still alive.)
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Given what's happening with asylum seekers getting into Europe via Turkey/Kos (Kos being only 3 miles across the sea from Turkey for those unfamiliar), it's not impossible to think he might not have been on the island long.
 
http://cnews.canoe.com/CNEWS/World/2016/05/10/22631843.html

"The question I would like people to ask themselves is: could you be Ben?" said detective inspector Jon Cousins, the lead U.K. investigator.

"As a child, did you have blonde hair and blue eyes? Do you have doubts over who your parents are, or perhaps you look physically different to your parents? ... If you have any of these doubts, please call us," he said.
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More details on the mystery man named Nikos

Ben Needham 'snatched and taken away on black speedboat to man called Nikos'
Ben, from Sheffield, was just 21 months old when he vanished without a trace on July 24, 1991, while living in Kos with his mum and grandparents.

It has now emerged an unidentified source told devastated gran Christine how the boy was whisked away by sea.

A friend of the Needhams said: *“Christine was told Ben was kidnapped and taken away on a black speedboat as they frantically searched the island.

“They have always believed he was abducted . There have been many theories that little Ben was stolen by a trafficking gang or even a paedophile network.
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/ben-needham-snatched-taken-away-7941488
 
KatiUK said:
Hi guys www.helpfindben.co.uk new leads in Ben's case.
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The family's website says that Ben disappeared from "outside the farmhouse at Iraklis, a small mountain village on the Greek Island of Kos". (BBM)

Looking at Google maps/Earth, the area looks to have been massively built up and developed in the intervening years because it certainly isn't a small mountain village today. It would be useful to know exactly where the farmhouse was and where that particular building is in relation to (presumably later) development of holiday flats and other tourism-related properties. I just wonder whether Ben could have wandered into nearby building works could have come a cropper there.

I also wonder if he had walked down to the sea previously with his parents (it's only a few hundred yards away) and gone off that way on his own. He would have had to cross the coast road, but his disappearance does seem to be around the time of the siesta/heat of the day lull so there might not have been very many people about.
 
The Daily Mail are putting the boot in today on the cops who have returned once again to Kos in the search for Ben:

A team from scandal-hit South Yorkshire Police enjoyed a late-night drinking session in Kos hours after renewing the campaign to find missing toddler Ben Needham.


Twelve members of the Operation Ben team flew to the Greek island this week to relaunch the search for the Briton who disappeared there in 1991 aged 21 months.


Nine detectives, three support staff and two Press officers were appointed to the project, with a maximum of 12 people in Kos at one time. Some of the core team flew to the popular holiday resort on Sunday and will stay for the entire two-week duration.


But on day one of the campaign – just hours after the Press conference to launch it – the police team started sampling the delights of the island.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ish-cops-Kos-1m-hunt-missing-Ben-Needham.html
 
The BBC is now reporting that a senior police officer has been recalled from Kos because of the reports of the mammoth drinking session:

A senior policeman investigating the disappearance of Ben Needham on a Greek island has been summoned back to the UK amid reports members of his team went on an eight-hour drinking session.


Police are investigating a report in The Sun that officers spent an evening drinking wine and beer after launching a new appeal for information.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-36273608

Sounds like they're treating the whole thing as a jolly rather than a serious investigation.
 
I can understand by Ben's mother is annoyed about the press coverage since it damages the case for the continuing investigation. However, the search for Ben has received something in the order of £1.25m in less than a year to fund further enquiries. That's an enormous spend on a 25 year old case that many would regard as very cold indeed and probably unsolvable.

It doesn't help that South Yorkshire police has huge credibility problems without the Ben Needham case. They have been under massive criticism for more that 25 years over their horrendous mismanagement and later coverup of the Hillsborough disaster, and more recently over a force-wide blind eye turned to a scandal which has been going on for decades involving gangs of Pakistani men committing organised gang rape and pimping (effectively trafficking) of vulnerable white girls in Rotherham, many of them in council care. It's worth mentioning that in the past couple of years there have been very serious calls for the disbanding of the force, or rather it being taken over either by another force in the region or by direct control from London.
 
THE FAMILY and friends of Ben Needham, the Sheffield boy who went missing on the Greek island of Kos, are marking the 25th anniversary of his disappearance this weekend.

Ben was 21 months old when he vanished from outside a farmhouse his grandfather Eddie was renovating in a village on the Greek island of Kos on July 24, 1991.

Sunday will be the 25th anniversary of his last confirmed sighting.

The Help Find Ben Needham Facebook group posted a message saying: “Having a missing child is not just an event, it’s an indescribable journey of survival.
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http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/family-appeal-to-find-ben-needham-25-years-on-1-8030242
 
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ben-needhams-mum-tells-enduring-8481369

Kerry Needham has a *recurring dream in which she finds her son Ben, who has been missing for a quarter of a century. In her dream he is alive and well.

“He’s a happy young man, living with another family,” Kerry told the Sunday People. “But then he rejects me. I wake up and realise it’s just a dream, so there’s still a chance of a fairytale ending.”
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ben-needham-investigation-breakthrough-cops-8845583

Ben Needham investigation breakthrough as cops probe witness claims missing tot was killed

For 25 years Kerry Needham has clung to the hope that her missing son Ben is still alive.

But when police officers this time arrived at her home, she knew by their demeanour they were not bringing her the good news she longed for.

The 43-year-old’s world came crashing down when they told her they now believed Ben may be dead – crushed by a digger on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.

The detectives told her to “prepare for the worst” and announced they would start a second search for the toddler’s body within weeks. “A new witness had come forward and given information about a friend of his who had recently died. The mystery witness came forward earlier this year after an appeal on Greek TV.
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I wonder what makes them think this witnesses is credible, though?
 
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