The Official Campaign to Help Find Ben Needham
This website is maintained and operated by the family of Ben.
July 24th , 1991
Bens story
My son, Ben Needham, went missing from the Greek island of Kos. He was just 21 months old.
On the day he disappeared, it had started like any other day. I left Ben with my mum and went off to work at a local hotel around 10:30 a.m. It wasn’t until 10:00 p.m. that I learned what had happened to Ben.
After I left for work, my mum continued to feed Ben his breakfast and get him dressed. She decided to take a walk to visit my dad and my brother Stephen, who had just started working on an old farmhouse in the remote village of Iraklis.
My mum set off around 11:30 a.m. with my brother Danny, who was 10 years old at the time, and our dog. The walk would have taken around 45 minutes to an hour.
When they arrived, Mikalis told Stephen to go down to the local market, as he had an account there with the owner. Xanthippi Agreli, who worked at the market, was told by Stephen that Mikalis had sent him to get snacks and drinks because Mum, Danny, and Ben had arrived.
Ben was his normal mischievous self — playing, running in and out, and pouring water over his head rather than drinking it.
At around 2:30 p.m., my dad told Stephen he could leave for the day, as no more materials had arrived and work couldn’t continue. My dad and Mikalis stayed behind to wait for the digger to arrive.
When Stephen left, Ben was still playing outside the doorway.
After a couple of minutes of Stephen leaving, my mum said, “Ben’s quiet — he’s probably doing something he shouldn’t be,” and immediately went to check. But he wasn’t there.
She looked all around the farmhouse, but there was no sign of him. She shouted for my dad to come and help her, and they all searched — calling his name again and again. The search went on for approximately two hours, but there was still no trace of Ben.
Eventually, my mum began to think that Stephen must have taken Ben for a ride on the motorcycle without telling them. She became annoyed but decided to wait for Stephen to return with Ben. However, he never did.
The digger arrived sometime around 4:30–5:00 p.m., and Dino, the driver, asked my dad where he would like the entrance to the farmhouse to be.
My mum then decided she would walk home, hoping she might pass Stephen on the way, as she knew by now Ben would be getting hungry.
When she arrived home, there was no sign of either Stephen or Ben — although a full can of petrol had been left outside for the generator, just as my dad had asked Stephen to collect.
My dad arrived home around 18:00pm., but still there was no sign of Stephen or Ben. So he decided to go to our apartment to see if they were there.
Stephen was there — but Ben wasn’t.
When my dad asked where Ben was, Stephen looked confused and said, “He’s at the farmhouse with you. I haven’t got him.”
And that’s when the awful panic set in.
Dad and Danny drove straight to the farmhouse, while Mum and Stephen went to the police station.
The officer on duty didn’t seem to take Mum seriously and said, “How can you lose a child? Go home and look again.” Mum, distraught, shouted, “We’ve searched and searched — he’s not there!”
Two police officers were then instructed to follow Mum and Stephen back to the farmhouse, where Dad gave a full account of what had happened. The police began searching the surrounding area, including barns and animal shelters, but they refused to conduct house-to-house searches, saying it was 9 p.m. and would be an invasion of privacy.
At around 10 p.m., I heard my name being called from the reception area — “Come quickly!”
Two police officers stood there with my mum, who was sobbing uncontrollably. They told me, “Ben is missing.”
The hotel staff immediately gathered water, food, and torches, and followed the police car to the scene. We all began frantically searching again.
We searched through the night until morning, when the police told us to come to the station to give our official statements.
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