Police have told Kerry Needham they will no longer be investigating her son’s disappearance and it will now be entirely down to the Greek Police to undertake any future inquiries.
The mum of Ben Needham has been left “shaking in shock” and “devastation” after police dropped the bombshell news they would no longer be investigating her son’s disappearance.
Kerry Needham, 51, broke down “heartbroken and sobbing” after she was told the major crimes unit at South Yorkshire Police would not be responsible for any investigations into Ben’s case any more. Instead, they told her, it is the responsibility of the Greek police to undertake any future inquiries blaming lack of ‘time’ and ‘resources’.
“This is devastating news. The case will now fall solely to the Greek authorities. If this happens, I feel like I may as well give up the search for Ben because the Greek police have only ever wanted this case to go away,” the frustrated mum told The Mirror, breaking down in tears.
The news was broken to Kerry during a video call by her family liaison officer, she explained. South Yorkshire Police said: “We remain ready to support Greek authorities should any new evidence come to light, and we remain committed to supporting Kerry. However after 35 years, we must ensure all of the appropriate routes are in place and remain fit for purpose.”
But Kerry told us: “For nearly 35 years, we have fought every single day to keep Ben’s case alive, to search for answers, and to make sure he is never forgotten. We believe there are still avenues to explore. This feels like a devastating step backwards.”
Kerry, who now lives in Turkey with her partner, told us, plans to re-interview witnesses whose statements were inconsistent and a meeting with the Greek public prosecutor, have all been scrapped. Instead any information will go to Interpol and the Greek authorities.
The gran of two, who has a daughter called Leigh-Anna, said: “I’m heartbroken because they are my lifeline, the only people I can trust and go to with the information I get. This was not the decision of my senior investigating officer (SOI), I feel sorry for him too. He had some brilliant plans.”
It is understood the SOI was planning a trip to Kos with Kerry to meet the Greek public prosecutor with hopes of building a joint team to look into what is one of Britain’s and Greece’s longest missing persons case. When they told her investigations would stop, she said: “I was horrified and in total shock and didn’t know what to say.
“I sat there with my hand over my mouth shaking my head and saying ‘this is so wrong’. It was sheer and utter shock. Then it was devastation, I ranted, I cried. I just couldn’t hold myself together, I was shaking. I just cried and cried and cried; ‘this can’t happen; why is this happening to me?’
“South Yorkshire are the only ones I can rely on to make sure that information goes to the right place. It will stop me from getting to the truth. I may as well give up looking now, if South Yorkshire Police are not there to make sure all leads are followed up.
“I do everything in my power. If my police are taken away from me what am I going to do with that information? All of my blood sweat and tears would have been for nothing. I feel abandoned.
“I will never get to know anything if the Greek police are in charge of it, because they won’t do anything. They won’t organise DNA tests, they’ll just put it in a file and move on. I’m gobsmacked.”
She has reason to fear as the Greek police have previously been accused of a ‘cover up’ amid claims of fake and inconsistent witness statements alongside a failure to lock down the island after Ben vanished. Ben went missing while he was playing with toy cars outside a farmhouse his grandparents were renovating on the afternoon of July 24 1991.
Kerry was at work in a nearby hotel and Ben’s gran Christine was babysitting. There have been no big leads coming from the Greek authorities since Ben vanished. Then in 2011, the South Yorkshire force got involved and carried out the first of two major searches at the farmhouse in Kos where Ben was last seen.
The second dig searching for Ben, took place in 2016, after British officers were told by a witness that the toddler could have been crushed to death in a horror digger accident, involving Konstantinos Dino Barkas. But no proof of the accident ‘theory’ has ever been found.
On the final day of the search, in the scorched earth, they found a solitary yellow toy car with decomposed blood but it was found later not to be a match with Ben’s DNA, which police have from a Guthrie test carried out on newborns. The former SOI in charge of the investigation on the final day looked desolate acknowledging they had not found Ben. But he said it was still his ‘professional’ belief that there had been an accident and the body must have been moved before their search.
But Kerry has dismissed this theory and fears her son was the victim of kidnapping, snatched from the island as witnesses claimed. Desperate Kerry has now written a letter to the Government, urging them to step in telling of the “unimaginable suffering” her family has endured.
Only last week the Met Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann were approved for an extra £108,000 taking up the total cost of the investigation, so far to more than £13 million. The three-year-old girl vanished from her bed while on holiday in Portugal in 2007. Operation Grange, led by the Metropolitan Police, will reach its 15th year since the task force took on the case in 2011.
While South Yorkshire Police, over the span of nearly double the amount of time, have received less than £2 million. In her letter to under-fire Keir Starmer, Kerry writes: “I am writing to you not only as the mother of Ben Needham, but as a mother who has spent more than three decades fighting for answers while watching support for my son’s case steadily diminish…
“Ben was a little boy who disappeared without a trace. His life mattered then, and it matters just as much today. What is impossible to ignore, however, is the stark difference in treatment between Ben’s case and the case of Madeleine McCann.
“Both are missing British children. Both families have endured unimaginable suffering. Yet the level of continued investigative support, media attention, Government backing, and financial resources provided to Madeleine McCann’s case has been vastly different to what has been afforded to Ben.
“I do not begrudge any missing child receiving support or resources. Every missing child deserves that commitment. What I cannot accept is the clear inequality in how these cases have been treated. My son should not be forgotten because he disappeared decades ago, because his case is difficult, or because there is less political or media attention surrounding it.
“For years, my family has lived with unanswered questions, heartbreak, and the torment of uncertainty. Despite this, we have continued to fight because we believed the authorities were equally committed to uncovering the truth. The decision to reduce support now sends a devastating message: that some missing children remain a national priority while others are quietly allowed to fade into history.”
About the funding received by police looking into the disappearance of Madeleine, Kerry says: “I honestly try not to compare it but it makes me feel like I’m not worthy and my son is not worthy of any resources, time or effort spent on him. It’s like he is a second class citizen. “
It reminds Kerry of how she felt more than three decades ago when Ben vanished. “I just felt like I wasn’t important. The police didn’t even look at me as a responsible mother. I was 19 and working. I had a child and I went to work, it was very frowned upon at the time, they were very much men’s men. The women were not important. They dismissed the family and me as unfit. That was so wrong but I am scared not much will have changed in their attitudes.“
A statement from South Yorkshire Police said: “We remain ready to support Greek authorities should any new evidence come to light, and we remain committed to supporting Kerry. However after 35 years, we must ensure all of the appropriate routes are in place and remain fit for purpose.
“This has included ensuring we reconfirm the route into Interpol for any information as they are the link between forces internationally and as such they are the most appropriate agency to disseminate information between countries. If someone comes forward with information in England, we will continue to gather relevant evidence and share this with Greece via Interpol. “
They said they continue to “allocate resource” to Ben’s case in the form of a family liaison officer and a detective acting as a ‘single point of contact for potential lines of enquiry’. The force added: “This bolsters our ability to ensure any information received is appropriately routed into the authorities that are charged to investigate.
“The Greek authorities have full primacy over the investigation due to the fact Ben went missing on Kos. Our role here in South Yorkshire is to act as a conduit between the UK, Greece and any other law enforcement agencies in a bid to secure answers. We have written to Kerry Needham to explain this position and offered a meeting to address any concern.”
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