Ben Needham’s mum reveals why she’s plagued with guilt over his disappearance as she relives the day his vanished

BEN Needham’s mum Kerry has revealed her memories of her missing son for the 35th anniversary of his disappearance – and the guilty feeling she still can’t shake. The Brit toddler vanished on the Greek island of Kos on July 24 1991 – 12,784 days ago – and no evidence of what happened to him has ever been found. Ben Needham was 21 months old when he disappeared in Kos in 1991 Credit: PA:Press Association Ben’s mum Kerry Needham is convinced her son is still alive Credit: Peter Byrne Kerry – who has never given up hope of learning the truth – was just 19 at the time. She had recently relocated from Sheffield, Yorkshire, to be close to her parents Eddie and Christine, and younger brother Stephen, who were already living in Greece. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! The young single mum had then got work at a hotel and she was on shift when 21-month-old Ben disappeared while playing outside a farmhouse his grandparents were renovating. The long-running investigation, involving local cops and teams from the UK, has included a mass excavation of the area looking for possible remains. Multiple theories about what happened have been aired over the years – including that a digger working nearby had accidentally killed him, and his body buried. Kerry, however, is convinced he was snatched by people traffickers and then illegally sold into adoption. The mum, 53 – who now lives in Turkey – told The Sun: “My memories of him are really as a baby. “When I was going to work and it’d be mimicking all the sheep sounds and the cow sounds and just basically talking and laughing – they’re my memories of him.” Most read in The Sun Timeline of the Ben Needham missing person case Here we take a look at the search for missing Ben: July 24 1991: Ben Needham vanishes while playing near the grounds of a farmhouse in the Iraklis region of Kos, which his family are renovating. His mother, Kerry Needham, and grandparents raise the alarm with local police and conduct a full search of the area. July 26 1991: Eyewitness reports claim a boy matching Ben’s description was found at the local airport on the day he disappeared. That boy has never been traced. September 1991: The Needham family return to England but vow to continue the search. June 2003: The Metropolitan Police issue an image of what Ben might look like at age 12-14 years old. 2004: An anonymous businessman offers a reward of £500,000 for information leading to Ben’s safe return. October 2010: Another public appeal is made by Ben’s mother in the run-up to what would be his 21st birthday. May 2011: The BBC airs a programme called Missing 2011, which includes a piece on Ben’s story and the campaign to find him. September 2011: Greek police on Kos officially re-open the case and grant the family a face-to-face meeting with the island’s prosecutor. October 2012: South Yorkshire Police in Kos begin digging up mounds around the property where Ben went missing to look for his remains. December 2013: Ben’s mother accuses then-Prime Minister David Cameron of not giving her case the same backing as he gave the parents of Madeline McCann. It comes as a dossier is produced containing reports from eight witnesses, none of who know each other, who all saw a boy possibly matching Ben’s description with the same Greek family. December 2014: Lawyers representing Ben’s family say they may take legal action to try to force the Government to make a decision about funding a new police investigation. January 2015: The Home Office agrees to fund a team of British detectives to help search for the toddler. March/April 2015: Three generations of Ben Needham’s family travel to Greece to follow up a “strong” lead that a man living there believes he may be the missing Brit due to having no photographs of himself under the age of two and no knowledge of where he was born. The man is later ruled out. May 2015: Ben’s family make a fresh appeal on Greek television for information regarding the disappearance. May 2016: The Sun reveals how members of the police operation went on an eight-hour booze-up in Kos during the latest stage of the investigation. September 2016: Ben’s family are told to “prepare for the worst” by detectives leading the investigation, amid the belief the 21-month-old was crushed to death by a digger – the driver of which died in 2015. It comes as police arrive in Kos to begin excavation work in the belief the boy’s remains may be buried near the farmhouse. October 15, 2016: On the penultimate day of a three-week search at two locations – Site 1, near the farmhouse, and Site 2, a landfill site – an item which is believed to have belonged to Ben is discovered. October 16, 2016: After digging up more than 800 tonnes of soil, the excavation work comes to an end with any items of interest sent back to the UK for forensic analysis. October 17, 2016: South Yorkshire Police DI Jon Cousins announces the discovery of an item that backs up their theory Ben died following an accident near the farmhouse on the day he disappeared. July 24, 2017: It emerges blood was found on a sandal and toy car belonging to Ben. The sandal was found in 2012 at the site where Konstantinos “Dino” Barkas was operating a digger, while the car was discovered in 2016 at another spot. No further information emerged. Ben’s mum makes another heartbreaking appeal for information. November 28, 2018: Forensic experts say the toy car found in the Kos dig does not belong to Ben. July 25, 2019: Ben’s mum, Kerry Needham, calls on the person with a “secret” about her missing toddler to come forward, saying it was “never too late to do the right thing”. July 2021: Police probe the claims of three witnesses that a blonde boy found on a beach wearing a white t-shirt, “crying desperately” and speaking English 587 miles away in Corfu could’ve been the youngster. She recalled how she dropped Ben off at her parents’ caravan in the morning, hours before he vanished. Kerry said he was “just his normal playful self”, adding: “I sat with him while he ate his breakfast and he didn’t want to eat his breakfast. “He kept just wanting to run outside and play, come back, have another spoonful and then run back outside again.” She went on to say Ben was “very mischievous, his fingers in everything”. Kerry with her parents, Eddie and Christine, soon after Ben disappeared Credit: Rex Features An age progression facial depiction of Ben as an adult Credit: Daily Mirror South Yorkshire Police excavate a site in Kos in September 2016 Credit: PA Ben was playing outside a farmhouse being renovated by his grandparents when he disappeared Credit: SWNS:South West News Service Kerry – who also has a daughter Leighanna – continued: “As I left him, he’d got egg all around his face and he was just standing in the garden.” She admitted: “I have a lot of guilt. I mean, I shouldn’t because most parents go to work and leave their kids with the grandparents. It’s just the way it was. “But I always think, what if I hadn’t gone to work that day? “That’s what eats me up – why didn’t I just have the day off? I didn’t really like the job anyway. Kerry now lives in Turkey Credit: Kerry Needham The brave mum is now working with private detectives in Greece Credit: Kerry Needham “It was a means to an end, we needed money to live out there. “I crucify myself sometimes with, why didn’t I just have the day off? What if I hadn’t gone? It’s always that what if.” Kerry is convinced Ben was snatched by people traffickers – and after extensive research over the years, has found such gangs were active in the area at the time. “These things happen,” she explained. “And I suppose, normal people in everyday society don’t want to think that these things happen because it’s horrific. “It’s horrible. The children are getting taken away from their parents. And I it’s kind of incomprehensible to some people that these evil things really happen. But I’ve seen it. I’ve read about it. I’ve studied it.” She said early in the investigation her dad was told by locals, as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy, Ben would’ve fetched a large fee if sold into adoption. Asked if she can imagine one day reuniting with her son, if he is alive, and how she imagines him, Kerry said: “It’s a strange thing because I mean, I’ve only really got the age progression picture and I don’t know if that’s 100%. “When I do look at him, I think yeah, maybe he would look like that. # “But my memories of him are really as a baby.” It comes after Kerry revealed last month an adopted man in the US who’d first contacted her in January believing he could be Ben was unfortunately not a DNA match. She has recently told The Sun how she has moved a step forward in retrieving a forgotten cache of documents, which she believes includes key information on Ben’s case. She says it’s likely her “last chance” to understand what happened to the toddler. Kerry claimed South Yorkshire Police – which has been co-ordinating the case from the UK since the beginning – told her earlier this summer it was scaling back its involvement. And despite the force since appearing to U-turn – allegedly telling the desperate mum during a subsequent meeting there had been a “miscommunication” and nothing was changing – Kerry has begun discussions with the Greece-based private investigation firm. She has explained how the company emailed her out of the blue in the midst of the uncertainty around the case’s future – assuring her it could get hold of elusive case files held by Kos cops she’s been trying to get since 2016. However, she is having to raise the funds to do so herself through GoFundMe. She also previously told us about her frustrations over the lack of public funding compared to the Madeleine McCann case – the toddler having gone missing in Portugal in 2007 – which has received more than 10 times the public money, with Kerry attempting to raise funds to increase a £7,500 reward for information. For more on Ben click here. For the GoFundMe click here. Comment now