Missing Ben Needham Is 21: Madeleine McCann Is Getting Older
KERRY Grist is the mother of Ben Needham. He is the child who went missing on the Greek island of Kos in 1991. He was 21 months old. He was born on October 29, 1989. He would be 21 now. But he does not age. His photos remains the same at his family’s home. He, like all the families of missing, are trapped. For them life does not go on. It stops.
But someone knows what happened. Someone always knows.
Kerry Grist wants the Prime Minister to start a new investigation. Says she:
“It seems more painful. It seems to be dragging me down really. I can feel a depression setting in. It’s getting harder to find the strength to keep going.”
The milestone birthday is a chance for Ben Needham’s name to get into the news. The last chance was when Madeleine McCann vanished. In May 2007, as the voracious media turned a missing child into Our Maddie, Mrs Grist’s words were of interest to the press. She saw Kate McCann on the TV:
“It was like a mirror image, the look on her face, the fear, the worry, everything. It was like seeing myself 15 years ago.”
Adding:
“The only thing I can try and advise her on is to stay strong, stay in control of everything – the police investigation, the media side of it – just stay focused and stay strong.”
Madeleine McCann has not been found. And neither has Ben Needham. For all the media’s power, both children remain gone.
Says Kerry Grist on Sky News:
“It’s not a celebration for us. It’s just marking the day that he was born into our family. And now somebody else is celebrating his birthday with him – he probably doesn’t even know that it is his birthday. He probably has a different one now.”
She adds:
“If it’s your child out there somewhere and you know in your heart of hearts that he’s alive, you do carry on… if you do give up nobody else is going to find him for you.”
Says she in the South Yorkshire Star:
“The police on Kos were so inexperienced, they just did not know how to handle Ben’s disappearance – it was a blundered investigation from day one. They were tourist cops, they were not specialised in this field, yet they never asked for help. Because it was classed as a Greek investigation Britain never sent any police officers across at the start and, to this day, 19 years later, not one officer has ever gone across. They say the case has never been closed but I want the British police to launch their own investigation, reviewing everything the Greek authorities have done and starting afresh.
“A precedent was set when British officers went to Portugal when Madeleine McCann went missing, so the same should be done for Ben. He is a British citizen and so am I – we both have rights.”
Time ticks on. Political boundaries soften. But one thing remains the same. When there is no news, the finger gets pointed at the usual suspects:
One of the theories, which Kerry believes, is that the blond-haired blue-eyed toddler was abducted by a gypsy gang and sold to a couple desperate for a child of their own.
Such are the facts…
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A computer-generated picture posted on the Internet of how missing toddler Ben Needham might look nine years after he disappeared on a Greek holiday island. Police are hoping that pioneering technology could provide a breakthrough in the unsolved case. * ... The remarkable image has been produced using an American technique adopted for the first time by British police forces to help trace a missing person. Ben, who was born in Sheffield, was just 21 months old when he vanished from the Greek island of Kos on July 24, 1991, while he was with his family. The website address is www.missingkids.co.uk.
Posted: 30th, October 2010 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (4) | TrackBack | Permalink
