THE grandmother of Ben Needham who was looking after him when he went
missing has revealed her daughter has never blamed her for the tot’s
disappearance.
Christine Needham, now 64, said her relationship with daughter Kerry, whose
toddler son vanished on the Greek island of Kos in 1991, was “amazing”.
She told : “She is the most wonderful daughter you could wish to meet – a
very special lady.
“She has never blamed me or her father for what happened to Ben.
“I have always felt her compassion for me right from the moment it
happened.”
The gran told how Kerry, who later had a breakdown and turned to drink to ease
the pain, was the one comforting her in the immediate aftermath of the tot’s
disappearance.
But she said even as the years went by, they had never argued over who was at
fault.
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Ben was 21 months old when he vanished from outside his grandparents’ home in
Greece on July 24 1991, where the family had recently moved.
The tot was playing with his toy cars near a farmhouse his grandparents were
doing up at the time of his disappearance.
The couple said they had always blamed themselves for not keeping a closer eye
on the tot, having allowed the relaxed setting of their new home to make
them “drop their guard”.
Christine said: “When you move to a foreign country you tend to take people at
face value.
“Whereas in Sheffield we would have put some string round the gate to stop Ben
getting onto the road, there just weren’t those dangers over there.”
Brit cops recently restarted the hunt for Ben, with the Home Office approving
funding a fresh £450,000 investigation – including a £10,000
reward for new information.
A new e-fit of what Kerry’s son – who would now be 26 – would look like was
also sent out, along with a general appeal to anyone of that age in Kos with
“doubts over who your parents are”.
A team of 10 officers have also been sent to the island in the Med to try and
hunt for new witnesses or information, giving fresh hope to the Needham
family.
But The
Sun exclusively revealed that the cops went on an eight-hour booze session
soon after arriving in Greece on the taxpayer-funded trip.
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