By Tom Parry, Lucy Thornton Comments 'I'd hear his voice in my head': Ben Needham's grandad talks of his two decades of pain

Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mirror, he recalled how he spent endless hours searching land around the remote rundown farmhouse

 

They were words which shook Eddie Needham awake in the middle of the night 21 years ago.
He and his family had spent days and nights searching for his grandson Ben on Kos when he heard the toddler speak to him in his sleep, pleading: “Please come and find me, Grandad, I’m here.”
Back on the Greek island, Eddie, now 63, says those words still haunt him today.
So too does the guilt he feels that Ben ever disappeared at all – he had persuaded daughter Kerry to up sticks and join the rest of the family in Greece in the first place.
Now the retired builder hopes the search led by UK police will finally end their nightmare.
Yesterday he returned to the spot where he last saw his fun-loving 21-month-old grandson playing.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mirror, he recalled how he spent endless hours searching land around the remote rundown farmhouse where Ben disappeared in 1991.
He said: “The biggest thing that’s haunted me is I used to hear him in my head, ‘I’m here, Grandad. Come and find me, I’m here’.
"I searched everywhere; the ravine, the brambles, the outbuildings, the well.
“I had to give up searching for Ben for my own sanity. It was sending me mad. I couldn’t think or operate properly.”
Eddie and his wife Christine, now 60, fell in love with Kos during their first holiday abroad together in September 1990 and quickly made the decision to sell up in Sheffield and move to their island idyll.
They bought a second-hand caravan, a battered old Land Rover and headed off with their sons Stephen, then 16, Danny, 10, and their pet dog.

Eddie said: “We drove there and for two days in France we went in the wrong direction.
"We spent Christmas Day in a motorway service station and had turkey Chris had cooked but that was it because the gas ran out.
“When we got to Kos we had a great life at first, fishing all the time catching octopus and eels and cooking them. We thought, ‘What a life!’”
Son Danny, now 33 and a singer, chipped in: “I loved it too. It was brilliant, I got to swim and play on the beach.”
But the family, who are incredibly close, desperately missed their first grandchild and Kerry.
They constantly wrote letters home to 19-year-old Kerry telling her about their new wonderful life.
Danny explained: “We told her Ben would have a fabulous life over there. It was so free and not at all like England with all the crime.
“Kerry’s heart had been broken by Ben’s dad and we told her to come out. She agreed and we picked her up from the airport.”
The family rented a small olive grove and set about starting the renovations.
Eventually Stephen and Kerry decided they wanted some independence and moved into an apartment together with Ben.
Kerry got a job as a waitress and Christine looked after Ben when she was working.
On the morning of July 24, 1991, Kerry went to work and Christine and Danny pushed Ben in a pushchair on the half-an-hour trip to visit the building site.
It was the tot’s first trip there to see his grandad Eddie and uncle Stephen working, while a digger driver moved rubble.
It was only after work had finished for the day that it became apparent Ben was missing.
Eddie said: “The last time I saw Ben he was playing just outside.
"He had a stick and was poking the mud and throwing water over himself.
“For some reason I thought Danny was outside with him but Danny said he was inside eating.”

 

It was Christine who eventually raised the alarm.

But in a devastating misunderstanding Eddie’s Greek boss said Stephen must have taken him when he’d left earlier on his motorbike.
Back then there were no mobile phones allowing the family to quickly check.
In the days that followed local police led the hunt for Ben, feared accidentally buried under the mountain of rubble when the digger was clearing the site.
Eddie recalled: “I had to stand and watch as police got a JCB and tipped the pile of building dirt from the site next door very slowly.
"Every bucketful felt as if my guts were falling out.
“They moved the dirt from A to B, and the police expected Ben’s body to roll out. Then they moved it back again.
"There was never a proper investigation or a proper search. It was never treated as a crime scene.
“There was a man from the BBC based in Athens at the time and he said he could try and get heat-seeking equipment from the UK to search but the police officer in charge said ‘no’ because he didn’t think Ben was on the island.
“He said if he was the birds would have alerted them as they come in huge numbers even if a small animal is dead.
"He said the ground was too hard for someone to have buried him.”
Referring to the fresh search, Eddie went on: “If they find anything I will be angry because they could have stopped two decades of pain and suffering of not knowing.
“Every time we left Kos I felt as if we were leaving him behind all over again.”
The guilt they still carry remains the most crippling aspect their ordeal.
“I feel so much guilt because I wish I had been strong enough to say ‘no’ we are not moving abroad, I still blame myself,” Eddie said.
“If we hadn’t persuaded Kerry to join us with Ben this would never have happened and he would still be with us.
"It was us who wanted Kerry to come live with us.”
Fighting back tears Christine added: “We told her to come out as it would be a wonderful life for her and Ben.