Ben Needham

[malagabob]

News about what has happened to Ben Needham. A Greek friend of a digger driver has said the driver accidentally killed Ben 25 years ago, and buried him.

[Islay]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3791887/Ben-Needham-breakthrough-Police-tell-missing-boy-s-mother-believe-crushed-digger-Greek-island-Kos-1991.html

In some ways if they do finally find Ben at least his poor mother will finally have peace

[murraymints]

at least it would be closure...sad though...

[Prudie]

How terrible to have gone all those years of her life in limbo if it turns out she could have known the truth right from the start. Poor woman.

[Smowball]

I was just reading this on the news. Said digger driver now dead.

[murraymints]

coward ! poor mother has suffered such anguish needlessly if this proves to be the case

[Old_Geezer]

How would a member of the public, let alone a 21 month child, get anywhere near construction work ?

[Smowball]

I did think that OG.

[murraymints]

there was a construction site next to grandparent's villa where he was staying...although this site was supposed to have been checked out..unless he took Ben elsewhere

[naomi24]

OG, //Ben had been taken to the site, in Irakles, by his grandmother Christine to visit his grandfather Eddie, who was helping to renovate a run-down building.//

The report also says that the driver said, in 2012, that he //may have accidentally covered the child in rubble while digging near a farmhouse on the island.//

I don't understand why it has taken the police four years to investigate that.

[Patsy33]

There still seems to be a lot of question marks...... My heart is breaking for that poor mother.

[Old_Geezer]

Fair enough, but one wonder why they would go on the site, and if the child was lost there why the investigation at the time didn't find the reason quickly. (The driver could be mistaken, it clearly was not taken seriously enough by his colleagues for them to do anything.) Well we can only await the result I suppose. Neither outcome is a good one.

[Smowball]

But surely a 21 month old wasn't wandering around on his own near a construction site? Where was the grandmother??

[fiction-factory]

I assume the visit to the site by Ben and his grandmother had taken place previously and it is thought Ben may have gone back by himself on the day he died

[Maydup]

Close knit community keeping the facts to themselves.

[Prudie]

I'd assumed this was a very rural area and the digging was nearby. Quite normal to see tractors etc doing work near people. Wouldn't have been like a current UK construction area with hard hats and H&S up to the nines.

[Old_Geezer]

That part of the article now seems to be removed.
This is the new description of when it happened.

"The youngster vanished on July 24, 1991, when Miss Needham, who was 19 at the time, left him with her parents Eddie and Christine Needham –who had emigrated to Kos – while she worked at a local hotel.
Ben wandered off at around 2.30pm but police were not contacted for at least three hours because the grandparents thought he must have gone with Kerry’s 17-year-old brother Stephen."

[webbo3]

// police are returning to Greece for the second time in 25 years, pity they never spent as much time and effort as they have for Madeleine McCann.

Dave.

[ummmm]

The McCann's started a media campaign themselves. They had the funds to start it.

[ladybirder]

The thread us about little Ben Needham. Please don't bring the McCanns into it or the thread will cease to be about Ben. Thank you.

[ladybirder]

Forgot to say his mother has shown the most amazing strength and this latest news can't have a good outcome for her whichever way it goes. I so feel for her.