‘I’ll never give up searching for Ben’: Leigh-Anna Needham on how her brother’s tragic disappearance defined her life
Three years before Leigh-Anna Needham was born, her brother Ben went missing in Greece
TEARFULLY sprinting into the street in her pyjamas, Leigh-Anna Needham screamed her daughter Hermione’s name over and over.
But the little girl was nowhere to be seen.
As Leigh-Anna ran back inside, the two year old jumped out from behind a chair in their Sheffield living room.
She’d been hiding.
“I scooped Hermione up and hugged her tighter than ever,” remembers Leigh-Anna.
“The whole episode only lasted two minutes, but it felt like a lifetime.”
What might seem like typical toddler play strikes fear into the 22-year-old mum of one, whose brother Ben went missing on the Greek island of Kos on July 24, 1991.
Aged just 21 months, Ben was visiting his maternal grandparents with his mother Kerry Needham. He’d been left in the care of his grandparents Eddie and Chris, and was thought to be playing outside. Then, at 2.30pm, the adults realised he’d disappeared.
The family frantically combed the area before informing police, sparking a huge search operation.
Despite numerous supposed sightings and theories since that day, no trace of Ben has ever been found.
It’s one of the longest-running missing person cases in British history, and next month marks the 25th anniversary of his disappearance.
Although she was born in February 1994 – almost three years after Ben went missing – the search for her older brother has permeated almost every day of Leigh-Anna’s life.
“I’ve had cameras in my face since I was eight hours old,” she says.
“I spent my childhood in Greek courts, on TV chat show sofas and being stared at by strangers in supermarkets who knew me as ‘Ben Needham’s sister.’”
After Ben went missing, Kerry, now 44, fell into a spiral of depression, attempting suicide more than once before Leigh-Anna was born.
As an inquisitive two year old, Leigh-Anna would point to the pictures of her brother filling the house, asking who it was.
“One day, Mum explained it was my brother Ben, who was lost,” says Leigh-Anna.
“I simply replied that we should go and find him, which broke her heart.”
The Needham family have diligently followed up hundreds of leads over the years, often travelling to Kos to investigate, selling their possessions to fund the search.
When Leigh-Anna was three, Kerry had a “complete mental breakdown” and Leigh-Anna went to live with Eddie and Chris for three months.
“The tipping point came when Mum was on the bus with her brother Stephen, who was the last person to see Ben,” explains Leigh-Anna.
“Mum laughed at something he said and a stranger called her a disgrace, saying that she should be grieving and searching for her son. That knocked her for six.
“Sending me to live with my grandparents was the best thing for me. Although she attempted suicide again while I was away, the break gave Mum time to reach rock-bottom and come back up again.
“If I hadn’t left, I don’t think I’d have a mother. She would have drunk herself into oblivion or topped herself.”
But being sent to live with her grandparents – and the headlines it brought – made it hard for Leigh-Anna to feel she could live up to Ben.
“I know now that Mum did what she thought was right for me at the time, but growing up in Ben’s shadow was tough,” she says.
Her earliest memory is one she recalled in a dream aged 15: “I was following a man down a winding path in a hot country. The man was pretending to lure me away using a squeaky rubber duck.
“I told my mum about the dream the next day. She was stunned, and said that had actually happened when I was 21 months old, the age Ben was when he went missing.
“I’d had my head shaved and took part in a televised reconstruction in Greece to try to jog people’s memory. It wasn’t a dream – it was real.”
The reconstruction was one of many trips Leigh-Anna took to Greece during her early years.
She vividly recalls the stifling Greek courtrooms and unfamiliar legal offices.
“I remember being aged five, sitting in a private detective’s office, surrounded by officials speaking in a language I didn’t understand,” she says.
“Sometimes Mum left me with my nan when she travelled to Greece, but other times I went with her. She didn’t want me to feel like she was picking one child over the other.”
Leigh-Anna says her nan became a “second mum”, particularly as Leigh-Anna and Ben’s father Simon Ward was sent to prison for robbery three weeks after her birth.
She no longer has contact with him, although the police update him on Ben’s case.
As Ben’s only sibling, Leigh-Anna became a key part of the media circus surrounding the search for her brother, and often accompanied her mother on TV shows to appeal for Ben’s safe return.
“I’d get up at 4am to travel to London, have my make-up done and sit on a sofa next to Mum, dazzled by studio lights,” she says.
“But I don’t blame her for putting me in those situations – it was the best way of finding Ben.”
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Inevitably, Kerry’s desperation to keep Ben’s case in the public eye impacted on Leigh-Anna.
“When I was 11, I found a newspaper clipping mum had kept,” she remembers.
“It was from during my stay with my grandparents and the headline said that she didn’t want me. I was so upset, but hid it from her for a week.
“Mum knew something was wrong, and when I finally told her, she reassured me she loved me just as much as Ben.”
While Leigh-Anna understood her mum’s struggle, less easy to comprehend was the fascination of schoolmates.
“They thought my life was glam, appearing on TV shows and travelling constantly,” she says now.
“It was annoying to be semi-famous for something so horrible.”
Throughout her teens, Leigh-Anna couldn’t act like her friends for fear of damaging Ben’s case.
“I had to behave in a certain way,” she remembers.
“I couldn’t risk anyone thinking I’d gone off the rails. The focus always had to be on Ben.”
Kerry also imposed strict rules, but Leigh-Anna says the only time she ever felt bitter was when she was 15.
“Mum drove me to and from school, and I always had to text her my whereabouts,” she says.
“All I wanted was to catch a bus, but even me going to a friend’s house scared the life out of her.”
However, despite everything, Leigh-Anna has managed to find happiness after getting together with family friend Craig Fisher when she was 15.
Now her fiancé, Craig, 27, has been a huge source of strength for her.
Four years into their relationship and while studying accountancy, Leigh-Anna, then 19, discovered she was pregnant.
“I was on the Pill, so I was really shocked,” she says.
“I wanted to have a career first, but things didn’t work out that way.”
Predictably, comparisons were drawn between Leigh-Anna’s future child and Ben.
“Some people thought I’d be driven mad with fear because of what happened to him,” she says.
“But I didn’t let myself think like that. I just looked forward to meeting my little girl.”
Hermione was born in February 2014, and it’s clear she is Craig and Leigh-Anna’s world.
Becoming a mum has also brought Leigh-Anna closer to Kerry.
“I empathise with Mum more. I can’t imagine what she went through. The thought of Hermione being taken away from me… I wouldn’t cope,” she confesses.
The temptation to wrap her daughter up in cotton wool is one that Leigh-Anna struggles to resist.
“I want to be less strict than Mum was with me, but it’s hard,” she explains.
“Hermione is already very independent. When I thought she’d disappeared that time, I was distraught.
“Safety precautions are like second nature to me: close the porch door, shut the curtains so that people can’t see Hermione inside.
“My instinct is to hold the reins tight, but I’m going to try to give her as normal a childhood as possible, because that’s not something I ever had.”
Over the years, numerous leads have filled the Needhams with hope, only to end in crushing disappointment.
This happened most recently in May last year, when a blood test revealed a man who thought he was Ben was not the missing boy.
“We cling to the tiniest glimmer of hope,” says Leigh-Anna.
“We were absolutely convinced it was him – he looked exactly as we thought Ben might. I’m still trying to come to terms with the disappointment.
“But I can’t just wallow in bed all day, because I have to look after Hermione. The experience made me realise what it must have been like for Mum to care for me with Ben missing.
“She was miserable, crying all the time, but couldn’t crumble completely because she had me to think about. In some ways, I think I kept my mum alive.”
When people say that the Needhams should give up, Leigh-Anna disagrees.
“Would you stop searching if it was your child out there?” she asks.
“We won’t rest until we find out what happened.”
For this reason, and to help her mum search for Ben, Leigh-Anna regularly travels to Greece with her family.
“I feel strongly that if this isn’t solved in Mum’s lifetime then it’s my job to continue the search,” she says.
Putting time into trying to solve Ben’s disappearance hasn’t stopped Leigh-Anna leading a busy life of her own.
As well as looking after Hermione and planning her wedding to Craig, she works as a branch coordinator for a private healthcare company.
Pictures of her brother fill Leigh-Anna’s home, so Hermione already knows who he is.
“She’s an inquisitive child,” explains Leigh-Anna.
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“We haven’t gone into details as we’re waiting for her to ask, but I’m bracing myself for that conversation.”
And Leigh-Anna and Kerry’s bond is stronger than ever.
“We’re more like sisters now,” she says.
“Mum is so strong – I admire her enormously.”
The Needhams’ fight to find Ben was given a real boost when the investigation into his disappearance was reopened in May this year.
Ten officers from South Yorkshire Police are now in Kos and £1million of new funding has been invested into the case.
“The officers have 200 years of experience between them, so we’re hopeful,” says Leigh-Anna. “Finding Ben feels closer than ever.”
Like the rest of the family, she is adamant Ben is out there somewhere.
“Mum believes he’s still alive, and I trust her,” she says.
“A mother’s intuition is everything. We believe Ben was sold to a childless couple. Until there’s proof he’s dead, we’ll carry on. Giving up is out of the question.”
When asked whether she dreams of the phone call saying Ben has been found, Leigh-Anna says countless false alarms have hardened her.
She finds it difficult to imagine how she’d react.
“Have a mental breakdown? Jump for joy?” she says.
“I’d probably pass out. I see him as a toddler, who’ll totter in through the door and be best friends with Hermione, not a 27-year-old man.
“This is all I’ve ever known, so we’d have to figure out who we are as a family away from the media storm.”
Leigh-Anna knows, however, that she’ll never have a “normal” life.
“Whether Ben’s missing or found, there’s no normal,” she says.
“He’s been gone for a quarter of a century. He might be happily living with another family. There are just so many unknowns.
“But I know he can’t have just vanished. He’s out there somewhere.”