Left to rot...farmhouse where Ben was last seen

THE farmhouse where missing toddler Ben Needham was last seen alive is now a ramshackle, sparsely furnished hut.

There are no carpets or beds and rags cover the windows of the property in Kos that Ben’s grandparents had begun renovating 25 years ago.

This week police started excavating a surrounding olive grove as part of a fresh inquiry into his disappearance.

Detectives from the 19-strong team have already recovered items of “slight interest” including fabric which will be sent for analysis to see if it is linked to Ben.

Yesterday, as South Yorkshire Police allowed access to the property, the search focused on the base of a large fig tree which police believe was planted after Ben went missing.

Officers studied a photograph taken about 10 days after his disappearance and noticed that the tree was not there at the time.

The picture, taken by a British press photographer, is the only record of the area from the time and police are now using it to aid them in a new search for Ben.

Detective Inspector Jon Cousins, who is leading the search, said: “This is the only record we have of the time that Ben disappeared in 1991.”

On the day he vanished, Ben’s grandparents were looking after him while his mother Kerry, then 19, was at work at a nearby hotel.

The family had moved from Sheffield to the Greek island in search of a better life.

But their adventure turned to tragedy when Ben vanished aged just 21 months on the afternoon of July 24, 1991, while they were inside sheltering from the sun.

The latest dig was sparked after a new witness came forward to claim that Ben was run over and killed within hours of disappearing by local digger driver Konstantinos Barkas who died in 2015 of stomach cancer.

Kerry has said the notion her son was dead never entered her “worst nightmares” until she was recently contacted by police and now lives in fear each day will bring the “worst news possible”.