Ben Needham's mum Kerry warns Greek locals she 'isn't going anywhere' as she dismisses claim her son is dead in new Disney+ crime documentary
Kerry believes Ben is still aliveKerry Needham, the mother of missing toddler Ben, has issued a stark warning to the residents of Kos in a brand new Disney+ documentary.
The bereft mum and her own mother – Ben’s grandmother – appear in the streaming service’s new series 20/20 Britain’s Most Notorious Crime Investigations.
And she is very quick to dismiss the police’s previous conclusion that Ben died in Greece aged 21 months.
Kerry has said that without a body or remains there is no evidence that Ben, who vanished in 1991, is dead.
Ben Needham: Lost in Paradise on Disney+
20/20 Britain’s Most Notorious Crime Investigations dropped today (Thursday July 30, 2026) on Disney+. The episode about little Ben is the first in the six-part series.
Called Ben Needham: Lost in Paradise, the documentary looks back at the lead up to Ben’s disappearance in Kos, and what has happened since.
Kerry and her mum Christine explain the story right from the start. And it begins with Kerry returning to Kos last year.
Looking out to sea, she admits: “I hate coming back here. It makes me shake, it makes me feel physically sick. Coming back here makes me relive that day.”
The family had left a “very poor area” in Sheffield, England, and moved to Kos in the early 90s. Kerry has two brothers, Stephen and Danny, who initially relocated with Christine and their dad Eddie.
Kerry stayed in England with Ben’s dad Simon Ward. But their flat was dingy, they were young and Kerry missed her family. So she and Ben moved out to Kos, too.
The family had rented an olive grove and Eddie and Stephen began working on the renovation of a farmhouse nearby. Kerry got a job in a local hotel bar as a waitress, while Christine looked after Ben.
On that fateful day, Christine and Ben headed to visit Eddie and Stephen at work. Ben was playing with his two Dinky toy cars outside the farmhouse door. But a short while later, Christine was unable to find him.
“Eddie went across the field shouting his name but he wasn’t there,” Christine recalls in the documentary.
Stephen had already left on his motorbike to go home for a shower. Assumptions he had taken Ben with him were wrong.
Christine and Stephen went to the local police station to report Ben missing, though no one could find him.
As viewers of Ben Needham: Lost in Paradise will see, what ensued has been almost a four-decade hunt for Kerry’s beloved son.
What happened to Ben Needham?
In their search for Ben, Kerry and Christine reveal how they were sent on a wild goose chase. A public appeal on a Greek television programme sparked a call from a prisoner in jail.
The man insisted a local Roma traveller family had stolen Ben. Christine and Eddie tracked them down with an interpreter but they were met with vitriol from the community.
Shock scenes in Ben’s episode of 20/20 Britain’s Most Notorious Crime Investigations show a man hiding something under a tea towel. He screams and threatens to shoot them dead.
There have been hundreds of reports of sightings of Ben since 1991. Computer generated images have provided age progression pictures but he has never been found.
In 2012, South Yorkshire Police launched a new inquiry into Ben’s disappearance. Officers returned to Kos and spent years conducting a full scale dig and investigation in the area where he vanished.
Officers concluded that Ben died in a digger accident.
Did Konstantinos ‘Dino’ Barkas kill Ben Needham?
Four years after the inquiry was launched, the police made a breakthrough. A witness claimed Ben had been playing close to where digger driver Konstantinos ‘Dino’ Barkas was driving his massive piece of machinery.
The witness said he saw Dino on the following days and said he was “red, upset and sweating and in quite a state”.
Detective Superintendent Matt Fenwick adds in the Disney+ documentary: “Dino said, ‘I ran over something that yelped and I thought it was a dog’.”
Dino, who died in 2015, was said to have buried Ben’s body that same day. An excavation of an olive grove later recovered one of Ben’s Dinky cars.
Forensic evidence on the toy car found it had been in contact with blood or tissue that had decomposed.
DS Fenwick says: “You’re left with the one plausible explanation. I think that Dino went into the area where Eddie was doing the renovation. Ben was playing between the two properties.
“I think it’s likely that Ben came onto contact with that huge piece of machinery. I think Ben died as a result of that.”
DS confirms in the documentary that believes it was an accident. He thinks Ben’s body was moved by Dino in a bid to cover up his crime.
Dino’s family, however, vehemently deny South Yorkshire Police’s theory.
And there’s a twist.
Kerry Needham issues warning to Kos locals
Two years after the car was found, Kerry received a phone call. It came following advances in DNA testing.
She tearfully recalls in the Disney+ documentary: “They said, ‘Kerry, I’m sorry to tell you but the human decomposition inside the car, it’s not a match to Ben’s’.
“I was thinking, why are you sorry? Because that means he’s alive. It means the accident didn’t happen.
“You didn’t find his body or anything else. All you found was a toy car. So he’s not dead then.”
Kerry vows to never stop looking for her little boy.
In a very stark warning to the people of Kos, she says: “Ben is still a missing person in my mind. We as a family will never let this lie.
“I appeal to those people on Kos to tell me the truth, tell me what happened. Tell me where he is if you can and I will go away.
“But until then, I’m not going anywhere.”
