The mother of Ben Needham is eager for this age progression image to reach America to appeal to the US public: “Have you seen this man?”.
Kerry Needham, 51, believes her son Ben, who disappeared at 21 months old from the Greek island of Kos, could have been “abducted” and sold into the illegal adoption market. The distressed mum, originally from Sheffield but now residing in Turkey, says when she first saw the professional age progression image it took her “breath away.”
Now Kerry’s hoping it could be the key to locating her son who has been missing since July 24, 1991. She says more and more information is coming in suggesting her son may have been trafficked for adoption to the New York area.
The “incredible” image was released in 2021, after being created by a National Crime Agency-listed forensic artist, Tim Widden, who works for police forces globally. It was organised by the Mirror to mark 30 years since his disappearance with Kerry’s permission.
The esteemed forensic artist created the image using Ben’s childhood photographs and snaps from the entire family. He also sent a full report about the image to detectives at South Yorkshire Police investigating his disappearance, reports the Mirror.
Kerry stated today: “We need to move on from sharing the baby pictures as that doesn’t help us any more, we are looking for a man now. Ben could look like this age progression picture and I want to appeal to people in America to study it. We’ve always appealed for people to come forward if they’ve seen Ben on holiday in Greece but now we are getting more information from America and we are looking at child trafficking. We need that age progression to be seen there. There’s probably more of a chance of Ben being in America, through the child trafficking than being in Greece.”
An age progression facial depiction of Ben Needham (Image: Andy Commins / Daily Mirror)
“This was always just a theory, there was no evidence, I need people to realise that. Without proof he is still a missing child,” Kerry said. Recently police in the US have been investigating claims a blond child – looking like Ben – was seen being handed over in a church in the US in 90s.
The claim was he’d been illegally adopted from Kos but the US investigation has since stalled. Illegal adoption in the US during the 1980s and 1990s has been connected to international child trafficking scandals.
Private adoption agencies and lawyers often circumvented regulations, matching stolen children with American parents. Kerry has now been contacted by a woman claiming her boyfriend could be one of those illegally adopted children.
She wrote to Kerry, saying her adopted boyfriend ‘looks exactly like this future drawing’ and explained he was ‘supposedly adopted in 1993. ‘ “He has always had questions about his adoption and his adopted parents.”
She claimed they wouldn’t give him his birth certificate and acted “insane” when he asked.
“I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, especially Kerry’s, but I feel like he is Ben. He is really hoping so as well…There are too many coincidences to ignore this.”
Kerry added: “My heart stands with the abduction theory because I have gone over and over the digger theory and so many things don’t make sense about it. The witness told police he might have seen Ben but the timings don’t add up. The DNA they found was not a match inside the toy car. They found absolutely no proof.
“Until Greek police or South Yorkshire Police prove that the accident actually happened and show me some evidence, then Ben is still a missing person and needs to be looked for.
“The only way forward now is get that age progression picture out there as widely as possible. We don’t know it’s 100 per cent but it has been done really professionally. It took my breath away all those years ago when I saw it because it looks like part of our family.
“There is no point in putting Ben’s baby photos out there. We have to concentrate on ‘have you seen this man, not this child?’.”
In a plea to the public in America, she said: “Again if they know any information or if they have seen this man growing up, was he a friend, neighbour or partner, let us know.
“Through our own investigations the epicentre of illegal adoptions is in New York and all the information we are receiving is from that area.
“It was only when we started delving into illegal adoptions fingers started pointing in that direction. In November 2024 we got our first lead pointing towards that region and since then we’ve had two more. Now we are waiting for this DNA test.
“I have been searching for my son Ben for 35 years in July. I never thought it would get to that milestone but here I am still campaigning for someone to come forward. I will never give up hope and never stop searching for my boy.”