Ben Needham - The Lost Boy

Little Ben Needham disappeared on the island of Kos back in 1991. He was just 21 months old.

I had recently become a mother myself and the horror of losing a child in such strange circumstances resonated with me in a way that it probably wouldn’t had I been childless.

Throughout the years, reports would crop up on the News of possible sightings and each time my heart would flutter with hope for the poor woman who must have been beside herself but also for her frightened, lost little boy suddenly surrounded by strangers. It was a story that was to stay at the back of my mind at all times when it came to deciding what was safe and what was not for my own children.

I cannot even begin to comprehend how his British mother, Kerry, has got through the last 19 years. She lived on Kos at the time and Ben was playing outside his grandparents’ farmhouse, in the village of Iraklise when he was taken away.

Investigators suspect that the blonde-haired child was seized by a gypsy gang, and sold to the highest bidder for adoption but the family feel that the Greek authorities did not move quickly enough to inform airports and docks of the alleged abduction and therefore lost valuable time to catch the kidnappers. Almost twenty years on, it seems unlikely that they will ever catch the culprits or, indeed, find Ben.

The Needham family have tried to keep up to date, regularly releasing progressive photo-fits of Ben as he grew from a toddler to a teenager and, tree years ago, British police came up with a computerised image of how Ben would look as an adult. On Ben’s 21st birthday, Kerry is hoping that re-releasing the picture may trigger someone’s memory and so that they make the connection.

What really tugs at the heartstrings is that it is unlikely that the grown up Ben even knows that it is his birthday or that all these people are still looking for him but British holidaymakers remain vigilant and Kerry still gets reports of possible sightings from all over the Mediterranean.

She says: ‘I’m sure he’ll come home one day – all we’ve got to do is wait for him to come back.

‘That’s what I’m hanging on to, and I always will.’