Blood on toy car dug up by police in Greece isn’t my Ben’s.. I’m devastated
Kerry: We just want closure
Toddler Ben Needham THE mum of missing British tot Ben Needham has been told DNA found on a toy car does not belong to her missing son.
Shattered Kerry Needham, 44, said: “Our 27 tears of slow torture goes on. It’s endless heartache and torment.”
Forensic experts in Oxford told Kerry in September they had found a weak DNA profile from decomposed blood inside the car, which police discovered on Greek island Kos where 21-month-old Ben went missing.
She was asked to provide a new DNA sample – only to be told two months later it was not Ben’s.
Reacting to the result, Kerry said: “If that blood is not Ben’s – then who does it belong to? It’s devastating. We had built ourselves up thinking it would be a positive result and would prove Ben had died.
“It would have given us closure and we would have been able to start the grieving process.
“When it came back negative it was a shock. I don’t know what to think now. Is Ben dead or is he still alive?”
She added: “I’m angry and I can’t stop shaking my head.
“Some people on Kos have been lying for 27 years and we’ve suffered years of torture, slow torture.”
The toy car was found in 2016 after an elderly witness approached British police on Kos and told them a digger driver called Konstantinos Barkas was behind Ben’s death.
Barkas, also known as Dino, died from stomach cancer the previous year having apparently confessed on his deathbed.
The witness said the day after Ben went missing, Dino had told him “it’s possible” he could have killed the toddler in an accident with his digger.
Dino allegedly said: “I thought I heard a yelp but I thought it could have been a dog.”
The toy car, thought to have been Ben’s, was found on a second dump site the witness led them to.
Barkas’s family say there is no evidence he had anything to do with Ben’s disappearance.
Since the find, it is believed the NEW AGONY Kerry and, left, the toy which had DNA inside
witness has stopped helping South Yorkshire Police with their inquiries.
Kerry, of Sheffield, said: “Now I want to know what the public prosecutor in Greece is going to do about it. I want them to get him back in and get to the bottom of it. Was he lying? Was it just a smokescreen?”
She urged the Home Office to provide South Yorkshire Police with more funding for its hunt.
Ben went missing on July 24, 1991, and his family have spent decades searching for him.
In 2012 the force carried out a first dig on the island funded by the Home Office which was unsuccessful.
The 2016 dig yielded scraps of leather and the toy car, which was found a mile away from the farmhouse where Ben went missing.
It was on wasteland where Barkas used to dump his building rubble.
Detective Chief Insp Jon Cousins, said: “Despite this forensic examination and result, it is still my professional belief based on all the evidence that Ben died as a result of a tragic incident at the farmhouse in Kos involving heavy machinery.
“We will continue to support Ben’s family and the Greek authorities, who retain primacy, should any further information come to light.”