Timeline of a 25-year mystery

July 24 1991: Ben Needham vanishes while playing near the grounds of a farmhouse in the Iraklis region of Kos.

July 26 1991: Witness reports claim a boy matching Ben’s description was found at the local airport on the day he disappeared. That boy has never been traced.

June 2003: The Metropolitan Police issue an image of what Ben might look like at age 12-14 years old.

October 2010: Another public appeal is made by Ben’s mother in the run-up to what would be his 21st birthday.

September 2011: Greek police on Kos officially reopen the case and grant the family a face-toface meeting with the island’s prosecutor.

October 2012: South Yorkshire Police in Kos begin digging up mounds around the property where Ben went missing to look for his remains. January 2015: The Home Office agrees to fund a team of British detectives to help search for the toddler.

September 2016: Ben’s family are told to “prepare for the worst” by detectives leading the investigation, amid the belief the 21-month-old was crushed to death by a digger – the driver of which died in 2015.

October 16 2016: Officers formally end a three-week search of two sites on Kos. Detectives said they had accumulated more than 60 items of interest that would be brought to the UK for forensic testing.

October 17 2016: South Yorkshire Police announces that it believes Ben died as a result of an accident near to the farmhouse.

Ben went missing in 1991.