Ben Needham’s mother is facing an agonising wait to see if DNA results will confirm if a Danish man is her son – more than three decades after he disappeared on the island of Kos.
Ben vanished from the Greek island aged 21 months 33 years ago on July 24, and was last seen playing outside a run down farmhouse.
A man from Denmark has now claimed his grandparents told him he was taken from the island, adding that his parents refused to deny the claims.
The man said he remembers going to a market 25 years ago and someone shouting ‘Ben’ at him, before he was then kept in a caravan.
Ben’s mother Kerry Needham, 51, said she refuses to get her hopes up after being in a similar position multiple times, only to be let down.
The mother told The Mirror: ‘This man is looking for his real family and he has given Danish police a sample of his DNA […].’
She added: ‘In 33 years we’ve had hundreds of alleged sightings, the majority of them we have followed up ourselves in the earlier years.’
When a picture showing how Ben would look aged 31 was released on July 23, 2021, Ms Needham revealed that she did not believe the police theory that he may have been killed by a digger.
In September 2018, Ms Needham was told by forensic experts in Oxford they had found weak DNA profile from decomposed blood inside the car near to where Ben went missing.
She provided a DNA sample, only to be told there was no positive match.
At the time, Ms Needham 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.’
