Ben Needham: Mother of missing Sheffield toddler launches crowdfunding page to offer reward
Video report by Mark Witty
The mother of Sheffield toddler Ben Needham, who disappeared on the Greek island of Kos in 1991, has set up a crowdfunding page to offer a reward for information about his whereabouts.
Kerry Needham, along with other members of her family, believe that someone on Kos knows the definitive truth about what happened to the 21-month-old.
The launch of the fundraiser comes ten days after Kerry marked what would have been Ben's 31st birthday with an emotional post on social media.
Ben was playing outside a ramshackle farmhouse in the tiny village of Irakles which was being renovated by his grandad Eddie when he vanished.
He had been taken there for a brief visit earlier in the day by his grandmother Christine, but half way through the afternoon of July the 24th, he could not be found by the distraught grandparents.
An initial excavation of the farmhouse land was carried out years later, in 2012, after approval of a Home Office grant. South Yorkshire Police and Greek volunteers made a second attempt to find evidence in 2016, excavating the farmhouse land and a second site.
This was prompted after information came forward that Ben could have been accidentally killed in an accident with a digger on the day he went missing.
But nothing was found except a toy car which it is thought Ben was playing with that day in July.
Although Kerry has had to contend with South Yorkshire Police's opinion that Ben DID die that fateful day, there is still no definitive evidence and she is crowd funding a reward, through the Help Find Ben Needham Facebook Page.
She hopes it will prompt someone on the island to come forward and offer information to end the family's agony.
Next July will be the 30th anniversary of Ben's disappearance. South Yorkshire Police say they will assist the Greek authorities if any viable new evidence is uncovered.
"We have opened a fundraising page on Ben's Facebook to try to raise £10,000 - it's over £2,000 at the minute so we have a long way to go, but I am confident we can get that," said Kerry.
"We've waited four years since South Yorkshire Police came to their conclusion that Ben died in an accident, but unfortunately they never recovered him , it was just a case of, what's it going to take to make these people give us the information that we need, and I suppose to use the present circumstances, we thought money."