Ever since that fateful day her little boy vanished, Kerry Needham has campaigned tirelessly for police to continue investigating Ben’s disappearance, in hopes that he is still alive.
However, police now fear Ben could have been killed whilst on the Greek island of Kos, where his grandparents were renovating a farmhouse.
Recently, detectives told Ben’s mother Kerry Needham to “prepare for the worst” as they announced they would be starting a second search for her son’s body in coming weeks.
The Mirror reports that the South Yorkshire police will be excavating two new areas in the next few weeks, with one being a two-and-a-half acre plot beside the farmhouse where Ben was last seen 25 years ago.
The owner of the land, Stefano Troumouhis, told them that the police contacted him asking for permission to dig it up.
Stefano, who inherited the property following his grandmother’s passing, told them: “They asked for permission to dig. Obviously I have agreed.
“But I don’t think they will find Ben.
He also revealed that he doesn’t believe Dino had “anything to do with Ben’s disappearance”.
Last week, a new witness came forward claiming digger drive Konstantinos Barkas (known as Dino), who was working in the area, could have accidentally killed Ben and in panic, buried the little boy.
Dino had been working nearby on a new property, and the witness described seeing him the day after Ben’s disappearance as “sweating and shaking”.
Barkas died last year from stomach cancer before the South Yorkshire Police arrived in Kos, and now his widower has hit back at claims her husband may have killed Ben.
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, Varvara Barkas said: “My husband was a good man and I know he had nothing to do with Ben’s disappearance.
“He never once spoke to me about Ben. The only thing he ever said was that he saw a car that day. Even when he was dying he never mentioned Ben.”
Varvara also insisted that her husband Dino was always co-operative with the authorities, even when he was extremely ill.
We will bring you more on this story as it happens.
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