Thirty-five years after the disappearance of her son Ben on the Greek island of Kos, Kerry Needham remains determined to uncover the truth.

In an emotional interview with TO VIMA, she speaks about her shock after South Yorkshire Police informed her they would no longer actively investigate the case, her frustration over unanswered questions, and why she refuses to give up hope.

Despite decades of false leads, public scrutiny and heartbreak, Needham says her search for Ben is far from over.

“I Was in Absolute Shock”

Could we please start with the news that South Yorkshire Police recently said that would no longer be investigating your son’s disappearance. How do you feel now and what exactly you have been told?

I was given the news by my family liaison officer ten days ago. Then I had another meeting with the senior investigating officer, the detective who has been in charge of Ben’s investigation for a few years now. I had a meeting with him on Thursday last week and we discussed what I’d been told, that South Yorkshire Police were basically stepping back from the investigation and the Greek police will solely be responsible for it from now on. And all lines of enquiry would have to go via Interpol and to the Greek police to initiate any other investigation leads.

A new computer-generated picture of how experts believe missing child Ben Needham, who is now 10 years old, would look like today has been issued on a website for missing children July 23. Ben went missing when he was only 21 months old on the Greek island of Kos nine years ago. This is the first time in the UK that police are using the computer programme and have placed the image on the website
www.missingchildren.com.
RUS

When you first heard about this news and when you were told about this development, how did you react?

I was in shock, absolute shock, because I need the investigating officers in South Yorkshire, in England, to help me move this case forward and I really, really couldn’t believe that they would do this to me. They know that I rely on them and I was devastated. It was heartbreaking. The news was absolutely heartbreaking to hear.

The Role of the Greek Authorities Going Forward

What does this mean for the ongoing investigation by the Greek police and do you believe that Greek police will help you in this case?

What was going to be happening in the near future, which I had discussed with my senior investigating officer, was to come back to Kos and have a meeting with the public prosecutor on Kos, a face-to-face meeting with myself, a representative from the British Consulate on Rodes and also the senior investigating officer from South Yorkshire Police. We were going to try and build some kind of new relationship with the Greek police on Kos and to see how as a team, together, we could push Ben’s investigation further. We know that there are witnesses that were there on the day who need re-interviewing. The witness that came forward to South Yorkshire Police and blamed the digger driver. There’s still outstanding lines of enquiry that need to be investigated further and we were hoping to do this with the help of the public prosecutor on Kos and the Kos police now. They’re a completely different police force to what they were in 1991 and we were really, really hoping to build new relationships with them and really work together on this, but obviously now that’s not going to be allowed to happen.

“Someone on Kos Knows the Truth”

As the 35th anniversary approaches, how are you coping emotionally with everything that has happened the last few years? And after more than three decades, what keeps you continuing the search for Ben?

I continue the search for Ben because I need to know the truth to really what happened. When South Yorkshire Police came to Kos and they did the excavation in 2016, no physical or forensic evidence was found. So therefore, in my mind, that just stands as a theory to what happened to Ben. An abduction is a theory. The theories need to be proven. I need proof to know what’s happened to my son. The love for my son keeps me going. Every day I fight for the truth, for the answers. I truly, truly believe there is someone on Kos that knows the answers to this and I keep urging them to come forward. Nothing is going to happen to them because of the Statue of Limitation in Greece. I beg them to put me out of my misery and let me find the truth. It has a devastating effect on my mental health, on my family’s health. But every day we wake up and find the strength from somewhere to carry on because we need to. We need to know exactly what happened to Ben and where he is.

A bulldozer excavates a site during an investigation for Ben Needham, a 21-month-old British toddler who went missing in 1991, on the island of Kos, Greece, September 27, 2016. REUTERS/Vassilis Triandafyllou

Do anniversaries since the disappearance of Ben become harder with time or has your way of dealing with the grief changed?

I deal with every day as it comes, actually. I don’t know how I’m going to feel from one day to the next. The anniversaries are difficult to deal with. I wouldn’t say 35 years is going to be any more difficult than the first year. I find it extremely upsetting that I am still in this position 35 years later when someone could have done the right thing all those years ago and came forward. But, you know, I deal with my emotions the best way I can and, like I said, just continue to gain strength every day. I will not give up this fight. I will not give up the search at all. I think people over many years have thought that I wouldn’t continue and I would just disappear, go back to the UK and disappear and never come back to Greece again and forget about what’s happened. Well, that is not going to happen. And I can tell the people in Greece I am not going to stop looking for my child. I am not. And I beg anyone that has any information to come forward.

Throughout these years, these 35 years, there have been reports about possible sightings of Ben in the US, in various places and countries. Did you take that information seriously?

Yes, we take every single piece of information seriously and I do a lot of the investigative work myself before I hand it over to the police. Obviously, the power of social media is a really big help to me to be able to investigate any lines of enquiry. I try and eliminate… We do get a lot of people coming forward claiming that they are Ben or they have seen Ben. And I use social media to either eliminate that person and if I can’t eliminate that person, then all the information goes to the police in South Yorkshire, the detective that’s in charge of the case here in the UK. And then he will then file a report and send it via Interpol to the relevant country. Investigations are done and DNA tests are taken and it’s never been a problem up to now. And I need that to continue.

Have police shared with you any meaningful updates regarding the US or other countries or other leads that you have received throughout these years?

No, unfortunately, there has been no updates from two enquiries in the US. There is still an outstanding enquiry in Corfu. Lines of communication are extremely slow between the Greek authorities, unfortunately. And I really don’t want to be critical of them, but this is why we need to build a relationship with the police on course to make sure that these lines of enquiry are followed through seriously and concluded.

Why Kerry Needham Still Rejects the Accident Theory

How do you protect yourself emotionally from false hopes after so many years? Police have long suggested that Ben may have died in an accident involving excavation machinery on course. Is still this relevant scenario or a theory that you still reject?

I will reject the theory of the accident because there is no proof that that happened. The people of Greece and throughout the world, realistically, they saw the excavation that the Greek police and the Greek volunteers and South Yorkshire police did in 2016. It was a huge, extensive excavation of the area and other surrounding areas and nothing, absolutely nothing was found of any significance to prove that that accident happened. They did find a toy car that we thought belonged to Ben. And after extensive forensic examination, the DNA, which was inside the soil, there was some decomposed blood within the soil inside this toy car. It was forensically examined and it was negative as a match to Ben’s DNA. So that to me shows this is only a theory that South Yorkshire police worked on. It is not proven. So therefore my son is still classed as a missing person.

False Leads, DNA Tests and Social Media Investigations

What continues to make you believe Ben could still be alive and what unanswered question haunts you most today?

The most unanswered question that haunts me the most is why has someone not come forward in all these years and told me what happened? Why have the Greek police, the original Greek police, refused to speak to South Yorkshire police regarding their initial investigations? My emotions, I try to keep under control as much as I can. I don’t meet anyone in person anymore who believes they are Ben. I’ve done this several times. I have met a person who thinks they are Ben and then the DNA test has revealed that he’s not and that’s truly…

epa03437835 A handout image provided by the www.helpfindben.co.uk campaign shows an artist impression of Ben Needham aged 21. Reports on 18 October 2012 state that Ben Needham’s mother has flown to the Greek island of Kos as British police prepare to investigate a mound of earth close to where Needham was last seen. Ben Needham was 21 months old when he disappeared on Kos, where he was on holiday with his grandparents. EPA/HELPFINDBEN.CO.UK HANDOUT HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

On that, what do you think that make people come forward and allege and claim that they are Ben?

They look back at their family history. Sometimes they don’t have access to any birth certificate. They don’t feel that they belong to the family that has brought them up all these years or they look completely different to the family. For example, there was a young man a few years ago who lived alongside the travelling communities throughout northern Greece. His family were very, very dark. Dark-skinned, dark hair. And he was blonde and blue-eyed. So, he felt that he didn’t fit in with his family and he did look very similar to an age progression of Ben that had been done over the years. And I think that initiates people if they think that they look similar and they have unanswered questions about their upbringing. That’s what drives them to come forward.

Appeals to the British Government for More Support

I am wondering whether politicians or government officials responded to your recent appeals for help and what would justice or peace look like for you now? I have written a letter to the Prime Minister of the UK. I haven’t had a response from him as yet. I would love to have a face-to-face meeting with the Prime Minister and discuss what he can do personally to help Ben’s case for more resources to be put into the investigation, whether that means more finances, more police officers. I really, really need his personal assistance on this. South Yorkshire Police are basically saying they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the time, they don’t have the money. So therefore I believe it’s down to the British government to provide that for them. And if South Yorkshire Police cannot assist, then give me a team of detectives or a police force that can do this. Ben is a British citizen. They hold a moral duty to help me try and find the answers.

epa05569807 British police and members of Hellenic Rescue Team search the ground around the farmhouse where British toddler Ben Needham disappeared on 24 July 1991, near the village of Iraklise, on the island of Kos, Greece, 04 October 2016. Police took the permission to knock down one room of the building and he ground around it, added in the months after toddler Ben went missing. EPA/YANNIS KIARIS

Have you considered writing a letter also to the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis?

I haven’t as yet. I did think about that, but I was really, really hoping that the meeting with the public prosecutor on Kos would kind of open some doors for us first. And if I didn’t get anywhere with that, then yes, a letter to the Greek Prime Minister asking him to intervene would have been my next step.

The Last Message Kerry Wants Ben to Hear

If Ben were somehow able to hear you today, what would you want to say to him? And what do you never want the public to forget about Ben?

Ben was a beautiful, innocent child that was taken away from his family by whatever means, whether it was abduction or whether it was an accident. If Ben is out there or someone knows where my son is or knows him personally, I just urge you, beg you, plead you to get in touch with me. I just want to know where he is, that he’s safe, that he’s had a good upbringing. I know if Ben was actually found, this would cause lots and lots of trauma to himself because he’s probably been lied to all of these years. I don’t want to hurt him. I just want him to know the truth that I never, ever stopped looking for him.