New search for missing Ben Needham (From Thurrock Gazette)

New search for missing Ben Needham

2:52am Thursday 18th October 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013

Police investigating the disappearance of toddler Ben Needham 21 years ago are to start digging up an area close to where he went missing in Greece, it has been reported.

Ben vanished on the island of Kos in July 1991 when he was 21 months old, after his mother and grandparents moved there from Sheffield.

Despite a number of possible sightings and a range of theories about what happened to him no trace of the youngster has been found.

The Daily Mirror said a team of British search experts is to begin digging up a mound of earth in a bid to find out if he may have been buried there.

His mother, Kerry Needham, 41, told the paper: "This is an elimination process and that's how I'm dealing with it. It's one of the most important things to happen in 21 years."

She has previously said she believed the mound of rubble, near the family's farmhouse, was already there when Ben went missing.

The team of specialist search experts drawn from police forces across the UK is to begin searching tomorrow, the paper said.