Kerry Needham has made an emotional appeal to the people of Kos in a powerful new Disney+ documentary about the disappearance of her son Ben.
The heartbroken mum features alongside her own mother, Christine, in 20/20 Britain’s Most Notorious Crime Investigations.
During the programme, Kerry firmly rejects the previous police conclusion that Ben died in Greece after vanishing at just 21 months old.
Kerry says there is still no proof that Ben is dead because his body has never been found.
Ben Needham: Lost in Paradise on Disney+
20/20 Britain’s Most Notorious Crime Investigations arrived on Disney+ today (Thursday July 30, 2026). The first episode of the six-part series focuses on Ben’s disappearance.
Called Ben Needham: Lost in Paradise, the documentary revisits the events leading up to Ben vanishing in Kos and the years that followed.
Kerry and Christine tell the story from the beginning, starting with Kerry’s return 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 and moved to Kos in the early 90s. Kerry’s brothers Stephen and Danny first relocated with their parents Christine and Eddie.
Kerry remained in England with Ben’s dad Simon Ward. But the couple’s flat was dingy, they were young and Kerry missed her family. She later moved to Kos with Ben.
The family rented an olive grove. Eddie and Stephen started renovating a nearby farmhouse, while Kerry worked as a waitress in a hotel bar. Christine looked after Ben.
On the day Ben disappeared, Christine took him to visit Eddie and Stephen at work. Ben was playing outside the farmhouse with his two Dinky toy cars. A short time later, Christine realised he had vanished.
“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. The family first thought he had taken Ben with him, but that was not the case.
Christine and Stephen reported Ben missing at the local police station, but nobody could find him.
As viewers of Ben Needham: Lost in Paradise will see, Kerry has spent almost four decades searching for her son.
What happened to Ben Needham?
Kerry and Christine explain how the search for Ben took them in many different directions. A public appeal on Greek television prompted a call from a prisoner.
He claimed a local Roma traveller family had taken Ben. Christine and Eddie tracked the family down with an interpreter, but faced hostility from members of the community.
Shocking scenes in the documentary show a man hiding something beneath a tea towel before screaming and threatening to shoot them.
There have been hundreds of reported sightings of Ben since 1991. Police also released age progression images over the years, but he has never been found.
South Yorkshire Police launched a fresh investigation in 2012. Officers returned to Kos and carried out an extensive excavation and investigation where Ben disappeared.
They concluded that Ben died in a digger accident.
Did Konstantinos ‘Dino’ Barkas kill Ben Needham?
Four years after the investigation began, police believed they had made a breakthrough. A witness said Ben had been playing near digger driver Konstantinos ‘Dino’ Barkas.
The witness claimed he saw Dino over the following days and that he appeared “red, upset and sweating and in quite a state”.
Detective Superintendent Matt Fenwick says in the documentary: “Dino said, ‘I ran over something that yelped and I thought it was a dog’.”
Dino, who died in 2015, was believed to have buried Ben’s body later that day. An excavation in an olive grove later uncovered one of Ben’s Dinky cars.
Forensic testing found the toy had come into 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.”
He says in the documentary that he believes it was an accident. He also believes Dino moved Ben’s body to cover up what happened.
Dino’s family strongly deny South Yorkshire Police’s theory.
However, the story does not end there.
Kerry Needham issues warning to Kos locals
Two years after Ben’s toy car was found, Kerry received a phone call after advances in DNA testing.
She tearfully recalls: “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 insists she will never stop searching for her son.
She ends the documentary with a heartfelt appeal to people living on 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.”
- 20/20 Britain’s Most Notorious Crime Investigations, including Ben Needham: Lost in Paradise, is available to stream now on Disney+
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