Kerry broke down in tears as she admitted, for the first time, she is beginning to have “horrifying” doubts that her missing son is still alive.
FOR more than two decades she has clung to the belief that her missing son is still alive – and that one day they will finally be reunited.
But yesterday Ben Needham’s mum Kerry broke down in tears as she admitted that, for the first time, she is beginning to have “horrifying” doubts.
She spoke out as a specialist team of British police prepared to start digging up a patch of farmland on the Greek island of Kos, where 21-month-old Ben vanished on July 24, 1991.
Kerry, 41, sobbed: “I have lived my life convinced I would see Ben again one day. I have been campaigning for 20 years, searching everywhere.
“And now they are digging up the ground looking for my son’s bones. It has left me traumatised – really shaken.
“I know in my heart of hearts they will not find Ben there because he is still alive somewhere.
“But I have to admit for the first time ever this search has put doubts into my head.”
Kerry, originally from Sheffield, is being supported by her parents as she waits at a secret location for news.
Soon she plans to make the painful journey to join the search team in Kos – returning to the holiday island that still haunts her.
She said: “I just feel I should be there. It is the last place I want to be but I feel I need to.
“It has been difficult for me to think about, because deep down I believe Ben is alive but then this makes you doubt it.
“It makes you think what if after all these years my motherly instincts were wrong? It would possibly make me doubt my whole life.”
She admitted: “If they find Ben’s body I’m finished. I don’t want to hear they have found my son’s bones. I want to hear he is alive, well and happy.
“I want them to do this search and then rule it out. Then we can all move on and concentrate on finding my son.”
The decision by UK police to excavate the area where Ben was last seen came after the Mirror revealed reports from Greece that the youngster may have been accidentally buried under tons of rubble that was being dumped in a nearby field on the day he disappeared.
Eighteen specialist officers from forces across Britain have been drafted in for the search, which will involve the use of ground sonar equipment.
Blond, blue-eyed Ben went missing when his grandparents Eddie and Christine were looking after him at a farmhouse while his mum was out working as a waitress.
Kerry and her family have always insisted he was snatched when his grandparents’ backs were turned and sold – possibly to a gang of gypsies.
Ben would be 22 now and the search for him is the longest active missing person inquiry in British history.
Kerry, who has a 19-year-old daughter, Leighanna, has followed up more than 200 sightings all over the world.
She says: “I’ve also listened to nutty psychics and even been the victim of blackmail.
“But when South Yorkshire police opened up Ben’s case again last year, I was given real hope.
“We even got his DNA from the sample taken at his birth by the hospital and I dared to dream there was still a chance I could be reunited with my son.
“At the moment we are waiting for his DNA to be distributed worldwide. It has been in the UK and Europe so far.
“Greece does not yet have a database, but it will have one in the near future.
“I always hoped they would use the sample to prove Ben was alive – now I fear they will use it to prove he is dead.”
Kerry was called into South Yorkshire police HQ in Sheffield a couple of weeks ago and told they had been given permission to dig around the farmhouse.
She recalled: “It just felt like a dream when they told me. I don’t think I said a word, just ‘Oh my God’.
“I went into shock and didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t expect it to happen so quick after the Mirror story.
“I went to tell my parents, my mum was shocked and could hardly speak.
“We are all so incredibly close and we sat around their kitchen table and held hands and said ‘right, it’s going to be horrendous but we will deal with it as we always have’.
“I’m sure it will send me insane for a while but when they don’t find Ben there, then the real battle begins and it can put all those doubts about him being killed in an accident, to rest.”
Kerry said over the years her ordeal has led to three suicide attempts – the last when she was 26.
“I just wanted the pain to go away,” she explained.
At 41 she now feels much stronger – but still fears sliding back into deep depression if she is given the news she has always dreaded.
Since Ben vanished she has returned to Kos on numerous occasions to investigate various leads.
But each time the devastating memories flood back, leaving her drained and damaged.
She admits: “I feel physically sick when I go back there.
“For years I have battled depression and fought not to let what happened cripple me but I am scared this will affect me again.
“As soon as I set foot on that island it brings all the traumatic feelings back and I am worried it will break me, or it will be the final straw.
“I will not be able to go near the farmhouse though. When I go there I can still hear Ben shouting me.
“It’s awful and makes me shiver. I hate going there. I feel uneasy about the place – it holds the key to my misery.”
Kerry revealed there were vicious rumours at the time that the family was somehow responsible.
She says: “There was horrible island gossip, accusing me of being a young single mother who worked and did not have time for her son so she sold him.
“Others said Ben was passed around like a ‘hot potato’.
“The truth was we all took it in turns to look after Ben because we all worked. We were not lazy and had to make a living.”
Kerry says there was never a proper search of the area.
She adds: “It was only Mum and Dad looking for hours. They just kept going up and down the lane shouting for him – all over.
“It’s so peaceful up there they would have heard him crying.
“Mum and Dad searched for an hour and a half just shouting, screaming for Ben.
“They called the police and my mum then came to the restaurant to tell me about 10pm.
“She was with two police officers. I thought somebody had a car accident at first when I saw her crying. She said to me, ‘I can’t find Ben’.
“I said, ‘What do you mean, you can’t find him?’ She said, ‘I’ve lost him, he’s missing’.
“I tried to keep her calm because she was hysterical. We were driven back up there but by then it was pitch black.
“I had not been there before – Dad was up there rebuilding a farmhouse, that was his job.
“All I remember is a dirt track road. Dad, Danny and my brother Stephen were just looking everywhere.
“There were four police officers looking too. We were all thinking, ‘where could he go?’
“The fields are just wide open spaces – there are two or three houses on that lane and fields and farm animals.”
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Kerry added: “You just keep asking, ‘How, how – how can he disappear?’ The last thing on your mind is that someone would take your child.
“We stayed there all night. The police asked Dad to meet them at the ferry point at 3am where they would be checking on all the passengers.
“Dad went down but the police never turned up. Dad was stood on the harbour alone.
“He tried to look himself, but he had no authority to check gypsy caravans.
“There were loads of travellers then selling goods from island to island.
“I have always felt Ben was taken and he must have been petrified because they would have needed to put their hand over his mouth to keep him quiet.”
Kerry, who had originally gone to Kos to start a new life, says she wishes she had been more forceful with the Greek police at the time Ben went missing.
She admitted: “I was such a scared teen back then. I could barely even speak to the policemen, they scared me so much.
“They saw me as just a girl, a young single mum.”
But Kerry added: “I have more fight in me now – we all do.
“Now the police see I am a businesswoman and treat me differently. I still feel sick to my stomach at the thought that our search will end badly.
“But I have an incredibly loving family getting me through this – as they have done all these years.
“I do not believe Ben is dead but in my view there is a one per cent chance he might be – and that horrifies me.”
Kerry says she tries to imagine what her missing son would look like every day.
Talking about this artist’s impression, released for Ben’s birthday, she said yesterday: “The first time I saw this image it made me cry.
“If that is how my son looks, he is so handsome. He looks like a kind person and that’s what I’d dream for him.
“All I want to know is that he is happy and safe.
“When he was born he had black hair and then it all fell out and he went blond. So I can never be sure if this is a real likeness of him.
“Every year we buy birthday cards for Ben and put them on the fireplace for a few days. My daughter Leighanna and I light a candle each.
“I often dream about meeting him again. I see myself collapsing in a heap.
“Sometimes I feel cruel because I think his life would be destroyed if he found out that his parents were not his real parents.
“Not a day goes by without me thinking of him.”