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Breakthrough in missing toddler case

It's been 25 years since toddler Ben Needham went missing
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He was just 21 months old when he vanished – and his face is as familiar in the UK, as William Tyrell’s is in Australia. 

 
Ben Needham was a blonde, blue-eyed cherubic toddler when he went missing from Greece on July 24, 1991. His British-born mother, Kerry, had left him with her mother while she went to work. At about 2.30 in the afternoon, Ben’s grandparents realised he was missing. 

 
In the quarter of a century that has since passed, there have been hundreds of ‘sightings’ of Ben and countless theories as to his fate. Some believed he had been kidnapped; others murdered or trafficked. 

(Credit: Getty)

There have been endless police campaigns and appeals for information about Ben, who would now be 26 – and in the UK, his face has become as famous as that other missing British toddler, Madeleine McCann


Yet this week there was news of a potential breakthrough. 


A local Greek man approached police with claims this his friend, builder Konstantinos Barkas, may have accidentally killed Ben while clearing land with an excavator.


According to the BBC, Mr Barkas died of cancer last year. His widow and son have strongly denied the claims. 


Police have begun a forensic dig in the area where Ben went missing , and expect the dig to take up to two weeks. 

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