Ben Needham cold case is reopened by British police

I remember when hearing about the "abduction" of Madeleine for the first time that I thought - let's hope that this doesn't turn out to be another case like Ben's when we never find out what happened. Maybe there was an intention to link the two cases in the mind of the public.

I don't know what happened to Ben but I have never ruled out the possibility that someone in his family was involved in whatever it was.

So how come the Brit police can go to Greece and dig, and yet they say have no jurisdiction in Portugal? Both EU countries, I don't get it.

candyfloss wrote:So how come the Brit police can go to Greece and dig, and yet they say have no jurisdiction in Portugal? Both EU countries, I don't get it.

They've been invited to help. Greece has no money, so this is the easiest way to get this done. Let South Yorks pay for it.

On Sky News this morning when the news reader was talking to someone (I didn't catch his name) about the police bringing in cadaver dogs to inspect the mound of rubble, the news reader asked him if it was possible for dogs to detect cavadar after nearly 30 years, the other person said that he had just spoken to an expert on cadaver dogs and he was told the dogs can go back 40 YEARS!!!!!

Newintown wrote:On Sky News this morning when the news reader was talking to someone (I didn't catch his name) about the police bringing in cadaver dogs to inspect the mound of rubble, the news reader asked him if it was possible for dogs to detect cavadar after nearly 30 years, the other person said that he had just spoken to an expert on cadaver dogs and he was told the dogs can go back 40 YEARS!!!!!

They must be just unreliable when they search people carriers.

Newintown wrote:On Sky News this morning when the news reader was talking to someone (I didn't catch his name) about the police bringing in cadaver dogs to inspect the mound of rubble, the news reader asked him if it was possible for dogs to detect cavadar after nearly 30 years, the other person said that he had just spoken to an expert on cadaver dogs and he was told the dogs can go back 40 YEARS!!!!!

Yes, I saw that too....

My SO gave me a 'high five,' as he knew precisely what I was thinking.

Newintown wrote:On Sky News this morning when the news reader was talking to someone (I didn't catch his name) about the police bringing in cadaver dogs to inspect the mound of rubble, the news reader asked him if it was possible for dogs to detect cavadar after nearly 30 years, the other person said that he had just spoken to an expert on cadaver dogs and he was told the dogs can go back 40 YEARS!!!!!

***
They can go back even further than that! Eddie is on record for having found the scent of a MUMMIE, who'd been laying in sand and then this sand was deposed on a sand beach ... How's that?


ETA that I'm wondering why a High Court order was needed to give police permission to use the DNA from Ben's heel prick ...

Châtelaine wrote:

Newintown wrote:On Sky News this morning when the news reader was talking to someone (I didn't catch his name) about the police bringing in cadaver dogs to inspect the mound of rubble, the news reader asked him if it was possible for dogs to detect cavadar after nearly 30 years, the other person said that he had just spoken to an expert on cadaver dogs and he was told the dogs can go back 40 YEARS!!!!!

***
They can go back even further than that! Eddie is on record for having found the scent of a MUMMIE, who'd been laying in sand and then this sand was deposed on a sand beach ... How's that?


ETA that I'm wondering why a High Court order was needed to give police permission to use the DNA from Ben's heel prick ...

As they are using GPR and dog's, does this mean that the authorities will be obligated to dig in Praia if dogs alert in Greece and GPR indicates there is something buried.

Pershing36 wrote: I followed this case and it certainly has a few loose similarities.

Abduction by gypsies, allegations of accidental death and stolen to order etc.

I am not sure what to think to be honest. However I do recall watching the documentary where the uncle was put under hypnosis. He didn't recall anything sinister but they chose to stop the process for some unknown reason when they started talking about the moped crash.

It was many years ago so my memory has faded some what, however I do believe one of the theories was the following. The uncle took Ben out on his moped, he had an accident which Ben may have been killed. Virtually next to the place where the uncle said he crashed the bike (he insists without Ben), there was a house being built and fresh concrete had been just filled into the extension. The concrete had been left to set and was unattended, when the builders returned they were sure it had been disturbed. I think it was a local policeman who said he was sure if that was dug up it would contain a body.

I personally don't know, in fact I hope it was nothing like that happened. Having family out in Greece I am baffled about these Gypsy links however. I have often seen gypsy camps around refuge dumps with the kids on top of the rubbish wearing rags and having no shoes. The kids go out begging for food, why on earth would gypsies need to steal more kids they can't even feed and cloth the ones they have!! In part of the documentary they filmed the family visiting gypsy camps asking about blonde haired boys that may have been asked for or sold. The gypsies had no problem locating blonde gypsy boys from their own brood, and quite happily offered them up for sale. Why would they need to steal them?

I remember the same stories in the UK when I was a child about gypsies stealing children. Today I put it in the same context as the bogey man.

Hypothetically, say if he met an accident while with the uncle, surely there is no need to hide that.
It would just be treated as an unfortunate accident and the underage uncle will not get too severe a punishment (if any) by the law.

PeterMac wrote:

Pershing36 wrote:
They are taking ground radar, an expert team and Gerry's unreliable cadaver dogs.

If they are taking the dogs, they may as well give up now !
(Is that right C-R ?)

Add April Jones case for CR to take note too, because Police are using dogs in the search.

Which makes you wonder why Gerry did not lobby the Police to stop wasting taxpayers money on those incredibly unreliable cadaver dogs?

PeterMac wrote:Sadly the scenario that is now being checked is more likely than any other.

Wonder what caused the Police to change direction, and why it took so long for them to go come around to look closer at crime scene?
I wonder if this is one option they'd to explore which they're now working on to rule out, or they already had some evidence to justify the resources and expenditure.

If would be daft for Police to deploy resources to dig just to rule out if there hasn't been strong indication to show a high degree of possibility the body is there.

At least his mum is cooperative and open-minded to Police works, and will fly out for the dig (that's what I understand).
She was reported as saying she understands the possibility has to be eliminated.

The difference of behavior between the two cases cant be more contrasting.

Newintown wrote:On Sky News this morning when the news reader was talking to someone (I didn't catch his name) about the police bringing in cadaver dogs to inspect the mound of rubble, the news reader asked him if it was possible for dogs to detect cavadar after nearly 30 years, the other person said that he had just spoken to an expert on cadaver dogs and he was told the dogs can go back 40 YEARS!!!!!

They are using them in Northern Ireland to locate graves more than 30 years old.
There are now Historic Grave detection dogs.

We've done lots of historic work such as locating human remains in old, old, old plantation cemeteries where only one or two headstones might be left but people say the cemetery used to be bigger. We bring our dogs out there and if the soil is not too acidic, there may be remains left in that soil even after several hundred years.
We located eighteen potential gravesites in the Mary Hemingway Cemetery in the Holden Beach area. It dates back to at least 1840, and it's now covered with a trailer park.
We also were asked to find a mass grave that was said to have been created to bury the sailors who drowned when the USS Huron wrecked near the Kill Devil Hills in 1877. The ship went down and the local citizens buried the sailors in a mass grave, but although the general location was known, people wanted to know whether human remains were really under there and where they were. You can't just go in and dig. That's not an acceptable way to find remains. So we brought our dogs and the dogs indicated that yes, there were remains in there.

http://www.dogster.com/lifestyle/cadaver-dogs

aiyoyo wrote:
Hypothetically, say if he met an accident while with the uncle, surely there is no need to hide that.
It would just be treated as an unfortunate accident and the underage uncle will not get too severe a punishment (if any) by the law.

I guess that blind panic could have set in, a story concocted and, as time passed, it became impossible to backtrack and tell the truth. There was also an 11-year-old uncle and I wonder what part, if any, he may have played in the events of that fateful day.

'Notoriously unreliable' eh?






Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219429/Ben-Needham-search-If-Bens-bones-life-over.html#ixzz29l2Idkuw

I am certainly no forensic expert, but are they likely to find anything on the surface after 21 years?

Still I bet some people in other cases are watching this and totally packing themselves that do find something. If they do they will know they will never be safe from being found out in their natural lives.

Pershing36 wrote:
I am certainly no forensic expert, but are they likely to find anything on the surface after 21 years?

Yes.
Soil is not a static thing. Every time it rains it washes fine soil downwards into the gaps left by roots, insects, and the summer drought which leaves a gap round every stone.
Over the years stones rise to the surface - paradoxically.
It is the activity of earthworms which brings soil to the top and buries things
In countries like Britain things get progressively buried. They seem to sink.
In hot countries like Greece and Spain there are many fewer earthworms, and things seem to rise.

In England farmers plough to bring good fertile soil to the top.
Here they plough to push the stones back down, and incidentally to bring the soil to the top.

PeterMac wrote:

Pershing36 wrote:
I am certainly no forensic expert, but are they likely to find anything on the surface after 21 years?

Yes.
Soil is not a static thing. Every time it rains it washes fine soil downwards into the gaps left by roots, insects, and the summer drought which leaves a gap round every stone.
Over the years stones rise to the surface - paradoxically.
It is the activity of earthworms which brings soil to the top and buries things
In countries like Britain things get progressively buried. They seem to sink.
In hot countries like Greece and Spain there are many fewer earthworms, and things seem to rise.

In England farmers plough to bring good fertile soil to the top.
Here they plough to push the stones back down, and incidentally to bring the soil to the top.

Thank you, well we learn something everyday.

My pleasure. I shall try to post a photo of my plot, which I don't harrow, for other reasons, against one next door which does.

PeterMac wrote:My pleasure. I shall try to post a photo of my plot, which I don't harrow, for other reasons, against one next door which does.

Where I live PeterMac we have to plough for fear of fires, we are the last as I love the wild flowers, ermmmm weeds

I don't plough. I wait till the wild flowers have seeded and then mow it all down. That way the roots remain to hold he soil together, the ants and tobillos (voles) and cicadas can make their deep tunnels and the rain soaks in and away. After the downpours three weeks ago (9 inches in 5 hours - 4,500 tons on my plot alone) we could walk on the land within two days, and put the horses out after 3. Next door they have destroyed the soil structure and still have standing puddles and swamps.

PeterMac wrote:My pleasure. I shall try to post a photo of my plot, which I don't harrow, for other reasons, against one next door which does.

Leave no stoned unturned may become something to haunt people in the future.

Pershing36 wrote: I followed this case and it certainly has a few loose similarities.

Abduction by gypsies, allegations of accidental death and stolen to order etc.

I am not sure what to think to be honest. However I do recall watching the documentary where the uncle was put under hypnosis. He didn't recall anything sinister but they chose to stop the process for some unknown reason when they started talking about the moped crash.

It was many years ago so my memory has faded some what, however I do believe one of the theories was the following. The uncle took Ben out on his moped, he had an accident which Ben may have been killed. Virtually next to the place where the uncle said he crashed the bike (he insists without Ben), there was a house being built and fresh concrete had been just filled into the extension. The concrete had been left to set and was unattended, when the builders returned they were sure it had been disturbed. I think it was a local policeman who said he was sure if that was dug up it would contain a body...

This was from a Guardian article, many years ago...

Extracts from Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/29/missing-child-ben-needham

"It was sunny, peaceful, there was only the crickets," she said. "It was like living in a free world. Most people wouldn't say, 'Let's just go and live in Greece.' So we'd achieved something. We had money in the bank, not a lot, but we lived simply and had everything we needed... sea and olive trees and lemons growing on trees in the streets, like another world, a dream. And then Ben disappeared."

It was Christine who had taken Ben to the farmhouse that day, while Kerry was at work. In Cyprus she described again what happened; how they'd been sitting inside, eating lunch, and Ben was playing, in and out, and then after Stephen left she couldn't hear him. "I'm thinking - he's quiet. It's an instinct, you just know the quiet bit means trouble. God knows I never thought it would be that much trouble."

She told me how they had assumed Stephen had given Ben a ride on his moped.

"He was mad for that bike," she said. "We've got pictures of him on it. We were waiting for the bike ride to finish, then 10 minutes turned into half an hour and then you're thinking, 'He's a long time'." About an hour later she'd said, "It looks like Steve's not coming back. I'll get off now, get the tea on."

Stephen was the last of the family to see Ben. "He said: 'Bike, bike,' and I said, 'No chance, go to Grandad.'" Then Stephen got on his bike and didn't look back.

Because of this, when he was questioned by the police he was singled out. They said that his moped looked as if it had been involved in an accident. Stephen told them about a minor crash a few days before, when he'd swerved to avoid some tourists on quad bikes, which explained the lack of indicators and a smashed fairing. But they weren't satisfied. "You fall off, kill the child, bury him?" the policeman said. The questioning had gone on like this for days. "They tried to break him," was how Eddie had put it, "but there was nothing to break."

Ever since the police questioned Stephen, their idea that he might have had a hand in Ben's disappearance has haunted him. "Did I take him, did I pick him up and put him on my bike, did I drive down that lane? I was questioning my own sanity. It was always there. How could a child disappear, how could he just vanish? Did I forget him somewhere or have an accident? Did I run over him or fall off my bike? I've asked myself that again and again."

In 2001, when another TV documentary was made, to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Ben's disappearance, Stephen was asked if he would be interviewed and whether he would undergo a form of hypnotherapy on camera. He agreed because he'd heard it might help to retrieve hidden memories. In the film he had to revisit the last moment he saw Ben and confront the doubt created by the police interrogation. It was traumatic but, when the filming was over, Stephen walked away sure that any suspicion that he or anyone else might have harboured that he could have accidentally killed Ben would be dispelled once and for all. Despite this, and although the film exonerates him, Stephen's fears were justified.

A year ago, he was out having a drink with his brother Danny and Kerry's husband, Craig. "One of my mates was half asleep, drunk on a sofa and a group of lads were threatening him, so I went over and said, 'Give up, he's drunk,' and one of them went, 'Oh, aren't you that uncle of that Ben that disappeared?' I said yes. 'You took him on your bike, didn't you?'"

It's taken him years to understand how the trauma of Ben going missing has affected him. "Our feelings were on hold when we were all trying to resolve Ben's case, so your own emotions get waylaid. And then when it starts to fade away, that's when you're left with yourself. If I hadn't been through that experience in Greece, I'd have been mentally stronger and more able to deal with the problems, to work through things." When I asked him how much he thought his adult life has been determined by losing Ben, he said, "It's been destroyed, hasn't it, really?"

SNIPPED

I know this isn't new, but it isn't generally known out there in the world, so I'll bring it up:

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2003/06/17/missing-boy-s-uncle-in-police-inquiry-55578-13078041/

What was this all about? I wonder how it was resolved - and what the established facts were found to be

Pershing36 wrote: . Virtually next to the place where the uncle said he crashed the bike (he insists without Ben), there was a house being built and fresh concrete had been just filled into the extension. The concrete had been left to set and was unattended, when the builders returned they were sure it had been disturbed. I think it was a local policeman who said he was sure if that was dug up it would contain a body.

That's very interesting about the extension and concrete as when I was watching the news earlier a Policeman pointed out a building that had been erected after Bens disappearance, right next to the site they are searching. I hope if they are doing a thorough search they consider the building and whether Ben could be under it. Would their funds run to demolishing (and restoring) a building though?

bristow wrote:'Notoriously unreliable' eh?






Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219429/Ben-Needham-search-If-Bens-bones-life-over.html#ixzz29l2Idkuw

So distressing. A mother whose life is finished if she discovers her son is dead.

A digger driver who came forward having excavated on that day and builders who swore that wet cement had been tampered with.

You'd have to ask why these issues weren't addressed on the day and what good it was to leave people still wondering 20 years on.