Kerry Needham makes plea for help on Ben's birthday

The mother of Ben Needham has made another impassioned plea for help in discovering her son’s whereabouts as she marked what would have been his 28th birthday yesterday.

The 21-month old disappeared on the Greek island of Kos in July 1991 .

He had been taken by his grandmother Christine to a remote farmhouse in Irakles which his grandfather Eddie was helping to renovate .

Ben disappeared without trace only minutes after he had last been seen playing outside the farmhouse on July 24 .

The family had moved to the island earlier in the year to start a new life in the Dodecanese.

After years of searching his mum Kerry was told last year by South Yorkshire Police that the youngster had probably died the day he went missing - killed in an accident involving a digger driven by a local businessman Konstantinos Barkas who died two years ago.

Yesterday members of his family paid tribute on Facebook including mum Kerry who posted poignant pictures of Ben alongside a replica of the car he was last seen playing with.

The actual car was discovered at the end of a three week excavation by South Yorkshire police in Kos in October 2016, which was funded by the Home Office .

Kerry wrote in one of her posts yesterday :

Despite the discovery of the car and a fragment of sandal which forensic scientists confirmed had traces of human decomposition, there is no confirmation yet that it belongs to Ben .

Further Tests are still being carried out by South Yorkshire Police.