The mother of missing toddler Ben Needham has said she would "tear up the whole island" of Kos as a police search ended without finding his body. For 25 years Kerry Needham believed she would find her son alive and one day be reunited with him. But that last flicker of hope seems to have vanished as police confirmed their belief he was killed accidentally by a digger when he went missing in 1991.
Mrs Needham told The Mirror: "I can't say goodbye until I know where he is." From the moment he disappeared on the Greek holiday island, the 43-year-old maintained Ben was alive and had probably been abducted. Speaking at the time of his disappearance, she said: "I've just got to keep that hope for Ben's sake, because we love him too much. I won't give up."
The search for her son took over Mrs Needham's life as she repeatedly appealed for help. "He's got to be found. He didn't disappear off the face of the earth - he is out there somewhere," she said. But last month, police told her to "prepare for the worst" and revealed that a friend of a digger driver, who was clearing land with an excavator on the day the toddler went missing, said the man may have been responsible for Ben's death.
In the years before the latest investigations, Mrs Needham said that "not even in my worst nightmares" did she believe Ben would be found dead near the same spot where he had vanished more than a quarter of a century ago. It had certainly not entered her mind that her little boy may have been crushed to death by a digger. Ellie Martin, who co-runs the Help Find Ben Needham campaign group, said: "It's a long time to wait thinking you're going to find your son and then suddenly your world comes crashing down. For 25 years all she's thought about when she woke up in the morning is to find Ben."
The 21-month-old toddler, from Sheffield, was last seen playing outside a farmhouse in Iraklis on the afternoon of 24 July 1991. He was being looked after by his grandparents while his mother was out working. Ben's disappearance sparked one of the biggest and longest-running search operations ever seen in Europe. Hundreds of sightings of Ben were claimed with none of them amounting to anything but more pain for the family.
Earlier this year, a South Yorkshire Police team returned to Kos to carry out house-to-house visits and chase new leads. They were given the tip that Ben may have been accidentally crushed by a digger while he was out playing. The police officer in charge of the latest operation, Det Insp Jon Cousins, told a press conference: "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." He revealed that an item found on Saturday, that it is thought Ben had with him when he went missing, had been shown to the Needham family.
