Leigh-Anna Needham has been helping search for her missing brother since she was born, helping in appeals, sharing her DNA, giving blood samples but now she is pleading with the police to make the same effort
The sister of missing Ben Needham has hit out at British police who told them they would be stepping back from the investigation, telling them: “Stop failing my brother.’
Leigh-Anna Needham, 32, told the Mirror: “We’ve all done everything we can to find Ben, why can’t our police do the same? It’s been 35 years and my family is still facing the same battle of asking and begging for help. Where’s the humanity in that?
“They need to end this nightmare and find my brother. Find the answers.”
She was responding to officers informing the family the case of missing Ben Needham, who vanished aged 21 months in 1991, was now being left in the control of the Greek Police.
They later apologised and said they are still ‘committed’ to finding Ben and giving the family support. But the 32-year-old accountant, who has two daughters; Aurora, aged eight and Hermione, 12, says her trust has been shaken and now believes it could be time for a bigger force, such as the Metropolitan Police, to step in and help her family.
Ben disappeared on July 24, 1991 from a farmhouse in Kos while Kerry was working at a local hotel. Ben’s gran was babysitting while his grandad renovated a farmhouse. In 2011 and 2016 South Yorkshire Police returned to the island to carry out searches around the property believing Ben died in a horror digger accident but no proof was found.
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Leigh-Anna now wants Britain’s largest force to review her brother’s case, just as they did for the McCann family after their daughter Maddie vanished from a Portuguese apartment in 2007.
Ben’s sister, who describes herself as coming from ‘a little family from Sheffield’ admits she hasn’t led a normal life as the family gave everything to try and find her big brother. Her mum Kerry, despite her decades of searching, gave her an “incredible” childhood but she admits the search for Ben still took its toll on them all.
“I was born into this, so I was passionate about the search for Ben from being little. I think the first time I was put in front of a camera I was about two hours old.
“Then I did Ben’s reconstruction for the police at 21 months old. I was put through things that no child should have to go through.
“Because my mum didn’t have any help when I was little so I was carted off to every country left right and centre looking for Ben. So it became part of my world.
“I was used for photographs, I was used for comparisons. I’ve flown overseas to give blood samples because Ben and I had the same mum and dad.
“I’m not blaming my family or my mum who are incredible. But I had to work twice as hard to get to where I was because in the midst of trying to get my GCSEs, I could be told that I need to fly to wherever to do a private DNA test.”
Then as she became older she coped with stalkers claiming to be Ben and online trolls including fake AI photos claiming to be her brother.
“I read all those AI-generated photos of Ben with his wife and children, that was absolutely horrible! But I can’t wallow in it. I’ve got two kids that look up to me and if I don’t do right by them then their lives are going to be affected by this as well. It’s been a generational curse and it stops at me.”
About the impact it has had on her own parenting, she said: “I try not to be overly protective of them because but I will just say I am a lot more wary and a lot more open to possibilities. But I try not to let it run away because I know my mum wrapped me up in cotton wool.”
About her brother Ben, she said: “I often wonder what my life would look like if this hadn’t have happened? I’d have had an older brother, my life would be completely different ”
Reacting to the police insisting it was still ‘committed’ to finding her brother and their ‘support’ hadn’t changed, she said: “It’s completely disingenuous, the whole thing. It feels far more like an attempt to keep us quiet and keep the public happy than it does to actually tell us the truth.
“They are now contradicting what we’ve been told by our own Family Liaison Officer and the Senior Investigating Officer. They tell us one thing privately and then they put out this version of events. That’s not what we were told.
“What led us up to this situation in the first place is we’ve had meetings with the SIO and our FLO on how we can move the case forward,” she explained. “We’ve specifically requested a meeting with the new public prosecutor and the British Consulate, to push the case forward.
“There are things that still haven’t been properly investigated that have just been left sitting collecting dust that our SIO wants to look at. He looked at the case with a fresh pair of eyes. He’s gone and put this forward and the request’s been denied and that’s the exact moment that they dropped his case.
“So we clearly can see that it’s due to funds and resourcing. The police are saying that Ben went missing in Greece, it’s a Greek problem, while Madeleine went missing Portugal but they have the Metropolitan Police involved not the local Leicestershire force. We can’t even have our local police force investigating it, which is frustrating.
“We haven’t had adequate funding in 35 years. I won’t ever ever take away what’s given to anybody else as every missing child deserves it. But why does one get more than 13 million in 18 years and in 35 we’ve had £1.3 million. It just seems so unfair.
“We are calling for a dedicated team of officers to investigate those outstanding inquiries, with appropriate funding and support from the Home Office under Operation Ben. The last time we had any funding was ten years ago in 2016.
“If this is not sustainable for South Yorkshire Police, then responsibility should be transferred to a larger police force with the full capacity and resources required to carry out a thorough and effective investigation.
“Anything less would amount to tokenism and would fail to deliver the accountability and justice that is needed.
“We need to put this nightmare to rest. I’ve grown up watching my family fight and beg for help. I’ve watched them falling apart and there’s nothing I can do about it. All you want is that nightmare to be over not just for yourself but for your entire family just so that your family can live in peace.
“My mum fights every single day of her life to find out what happened to her son and every time she gets somewhere it’s like a door’s just closed in her face. There’s nothing stronger than a mother’s love. Whatever they throw at her it doesn’t deter her.”
A statement from South Yorkshire Police said: “We remain ready to support Greek authorities should any new evidence come to light, and we remain committed to supporting Kerry. However after 35 years, we must ensure all of the appropriate routes are in place and remain fit for purpose.
“…If someone comes forward with information in England, we will continue to gather relevant evidence and share this with Greece via Interpol. “
It said it continued to “allocate resources” to Ben’s case in the form of a family liaison officer and a detective acting as a ‘single point of contact for potential lines of enquiry’.
“This bolsters our ability to ensure any information received is appropriately routed into the authorities that are charged to investigate. The Greek authorities have full primacy over the investigation due to the fact Ben went missing on Kos. Our role here in South Yorkshire is to act as a conduit between the UK, Greece and any other law enforcement agencies in a bid to secure answers. We have written to Kerry Needham to explain this position and offered a meeting to address any concern.”
