Ben Needham’s mum given new hope her missing boy is alive after man with ‘blue eyes and freckles speaking Greek’ spotted
THE mum of missing toddler Ben Needham has today been given fresh hope by a woman who claims to have seen him in 2015.
Donna Reilly is convinced she spotted Ben, who would now be in his 20s, while she was eating alone at a tavern in Skiathos, Greece.
The Brit described the man as blonde with “freckles and blue eyes” and she said he spoke fluent Greek.
She says she knows "in her gut" that it was the missing toddler.
Ben vanished aged 21 months while staying on the nearby island of Kos in July 1991. He has never been found.
The tragic tot’s mum, Kerry Needham, has now contacted Donna after she wrote about the sighting on the Help Find Ben Needham Facebook group.
Donna had posted: “I was on holiday on my own in Skiathos, Greece. Tiny, tiny island with little population. So would have been even less back then.
“I was eating out on my own at one of the taverns in the day and there are two men sitting next to me.
“They both spoke fluent Greek and the one I took notice of very much, about 5ft 10, blonder hair, freckles and blue eyes.
“I know you can get Greeks with that look but something just stood out and I couldn’t work out what it was.”
She added: “He looks very much like my oldest son who is now 30 but back then would have been 25/26 but it was something else.
“I couldn’t stop staring at him. He looked at me and smiled.
“I knew straight away it was him who I had seen. I just knew in my heart. My gut.
“I honestly feel he is living on Skiathos or that or Skopelos or Alonissis. I felt he was local and not on holiday. I tried but nothing came of it. It’s upsetting.”
Donna wrote the post in February this year, but Ben’s desperate mother Kerry has only just been alerted to it.
She has now told Donna to contact her directly, along with South Yorkshire Police, who are still investigating Ben’s disappearance.
Donna claims she contacted the police after her sighting but claimed: “Nothing came of it”.
Police released an image in 2013 of what they believe Ben would look like as an adult.
The artist impression showed a man with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes.
In 2019, Ben's mum, Kerry Needham, called on anyone with knowledge of her missing son to come forward, saying it's "never too late to do the right thing".
What happened to Ben Needham?
- July 24 1991: Ben Needham vanishes while playing near the grounds of a farmhouse in the Iraklis region of Kos, which his family are renovating. His mother, Kerry Needham, and grandparents raise the alarm with local police and conduct a full search of the area.
- July 26 1991: Eyewitness reports claim a boy matching Ben's description was found at the local airport on the day he disappeared. That boy has never been traced.
- September 1991: The Needham family return to England due to illness but vow to continue the search.
- June 2003: The Metropolitan Police issue an image of what Ben might look like at age 12-14 years old.
- 2004: An anonymous businessman offers a reward of £500,000 for information leading to Ben's safe return.
- October 2010: Another public appeal is made by Ben's mother in the run-up to what would be his 21st birthday.
- May 2011: The BBC airs a programme called Missing 2011, which includes a piece on Ben's story and the campaign to find him.
- September 2011: Greek police on Kos officially re-open the case and grant the family a face-to-face meeting with the island's prosecutor.
- October 2012: South Yorkshire Police in Kos begin digging up mounds around the property where Ben went missing to look for his remains.
- December 2013: Ben's mother accuses then-Prime Minister David Cameron of not giving her case the same backing as he gave the parents of Madeline McCann. It comes as a dossier is produced containing reports from eight witnesses, none of who know each other, who all saw a boy possibly matching Ben's description with the same Greek family.
- December 2014: Lawyers representing Ben's family say they may take legal action to try to force the Government to make a decision about funding a new police investigation.
- January 2015: The Home Office agrees to fund a team of British detectives to help search for the toddler.
- March/April 2015: Three generations of Ben Needham's family travel to Greece to follow up a "strong" lead that a man living there believes he may be the missing Brit due to having no photographs of himself under the age of two and no knowledge of where he was born. The man is later ruled out.
- May 2015: Ben's family make a fresh appeal on Greek television for information regarding the disappearance.
- May 2016: The Sun reveals how members of the police operation went on an eight-hour booze-up in Kos during the latest stage of the investigation.
- September 2016: Ben's family are told to "prepare for the worst" by detectives leading the investigation, amid the belief the 21-month-old was crushed to death by a digger - the driver of which died in 2015. It comes as police arrive in Kos to begin excavation work in the belief the boy's remains may be buried near the farmhouse.
- October 15, 2016: On the penultimate day of a three week search at two locations - Site 1, near the farmhouse, and Site 2, a landfill site - an item which is believed to have belonged to Ben is discovered.
- October 16, 2016: After digging up more than 800 tonnes of soil, the excavation work comes to an end with any items of interest sent back to the UK for forensic analysis.
- October 17, 2016: South Yorkshire Police DI Jon Cousins announces the discovery of an item that backs up their theory Ben died following an accident near the farmhouse on the day he disappeared.
- July 24, 2017: It emerges blood was found on a sandal and toy car belonging to Ben. The sandal was found in 2012 at the site where Konstantinos “Dino” Barkas was operating a digger, while the car was discovered in 2016 at another spot. Ben's mum makes another heartbreaking appeal for information.
- November 28, 2018: Forensic experts say the toy car found in the Kos dig does not belong to Ben.
- July 25, 2019: Ben's mum, Kerry Needham, calls on the person with a "secret" about her missing toddler to come forward, saying it was "never too late to do the right thing".
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At first, the family had assumed Ben had wandered off when he disappeared on July 24, 1991, but could find no sign of him.
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Eventually the search was widened, but to no avail. To this day no one knows if Ben is alive or dead.
Cops believe he was accidentally hit by a digger driven by Konstantinos Barkas but there has been no sign of his body.
