Ben Needham is dead? no body, no evidence and a dead man talks
Is Ben Needham dead? We don’t know but the question if riding high on the new cycle. The man helping police with their enquiries is called Konstantinos Barkas. He’s dead.
The BBC: “Toddler ‘feared dead in digger crush'”
For many years it’s been “feared” Ben Needham was abducted. Ben from Sheffield, was 21 months old when he vanished on the Greek island of Kos on 24 July 1991. Now we are told:
Missing toddler Ben Needham may have been crushed to death by a digger, campaigners searching for him have been told.
May. Is that news?
Ben vanished after travelling to the island with his mother and grandparents who were renovating a run-down farmhouse building in the village of Iraklis.
Yes. And those are pretty much all the facts we know.
Daily Mirror: “Ben Needham investigation breakthrough as cops probe witness claims missing tot was killed”
Can a claim be a breakthrough? What of evidence?
The Mirror writes on:
Police have told Ben Needham’s mum her missing son is now feared dead. For 25 years Kerry Needham has clung to the hope that her missing son Ben is still alive. But when police officers this time arrived at her home, she knew by their demeanour they were not bringing her the good news she longed for.
The 43-year-old’s world came crashing down when they told her they now believed Ben may be dead – crushed by a digger on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.
Facts? Nothing new. So why is this news?
The detectives told her to “prepare for the worst” and announced they would start a second search for the toddler’s body within weeks.
Who else thinks she has been prepared for the worst for years? And given the lurid speculation surrounding Madeleine McCann’s vanishing, do we think death is ‘the worst’? Isn’t a child vanishing”every parents worsts nightmare”?
Police broke the grim news to Kerry after a friend of digger driver Konstantinos Barkas, known as Dino, came forward to say he believes Dino may have been responsible for the death of the 21-month-old Brit.
Says Kerry:
“A new witness had come forward and given information about a friend of his who had recently died. The information was there had been an accident that day with the JCB which was working in the area and his friend who was driving it.
“They have got two areas of land to search. One is in the vicinity of the farmhouse where he went missing, the other I don’t know.”
A dead eye witness. A rumour. And? Nothing.
But we can speculate. The Mirror does:
It is understood the witness, who has been quizzed several times by South Yorkshire detectives, said it was accidental but officers have not ruled out a more sinister chain of events.
Well, quite. They have an open mind. They also have no body and no evidence.
In 2012, the Mirror tracked down Mr Barkas who confirmed he was excavating earth for a property to be built 50 yards from the house where the Needhams were staying.
Speaking at the time in what was his first ever interview, he told us: “Yes, I was the man with the JCB that day. Loads of earth were being taken to clear the ground for the new house.
“I think people were misled in thinking the child was abducted. Could there have been an accident? I don’t think so but no one really knows what happened.
“The little boy was two years old and the thorns in that field were as high as my waist.”
Such are the facts.
Posted: 16th, September 2016 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
