Ben Needham's mum wants same cash spent on Madeleine McCann for missing son

The mother of missing Ben Needham, Kerry Needham, is urging the Government to dedicate the same amount of resources in their search for her son, akin to what has been assigned for Madeleine McCann's case. Her plea follows a recent £192,000 grant handed by the Home Office to the Met Police to further investigate the Madeleine's 2007 disappearance, pushing total spending to around £13.2 million.

Kerry shared that South Yorkshire Police have received less than £2million over twice the time frame - 32 years- to help uncover what happened to Ben. While she expressed happiness for Madeleine's parents - with an understanding of the ordeal they were facing - she also confessed that the fresh funding for the Met felt like "a kick in the stomach" to her and other families with lost children.

The now 51 year old Kerry insisted: "No missing child should be more important than another." Ben, merely 21 months old at that time, vanished on the Greek island of Kos after his family relocated from Sheffield. Fast-forward nearly two decades later, three year old Madeleine went missing from a holiday villa in Portugal, The Mirror reports.

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Intriguingly, Kerry revealed that the chief officer in charge of Ben's case expressed a wish to return to Kos to continue the investigation. She voiced her frustration: "Why aren't the Home Office throwing money at him and saying 'Off you go and see what you have to do'. Where's the extra funds for our police to do whatever they want to do? She is urging for the questioning of a witness who claimed there was a digger accident involving Ben. Furthermore, she insists that witnesses who have given "inconsistent statements" should be re-questioned.

Det Insp Jon Cousins, the former lead investigator on the case, has stated his belief that a digger accident did occur. In 2016, a British team carried out an excavation behind the farmhouse where the digger had been working and where Ben was last seen. They discovered a toy stained with blood; however, the DNA found did not match Ben's.

The operator of the digger died in 2015, which led to a witness coming forward with allegations that the driver confessed on his deathbed to accidentally running over Ben and then hiding his body. The driver's family strongly denies these claims.