Kerry Needham has said she doesn’t believe in the prevailing theory about her son’s disappearance, insisting instead that he was the victim of a twisted kidnapping plot

Ben Needham’s mum said she believes her son was kidnapped(Image: PA)

The mum of a toddler who mysteriously vanished in a Greek tourist paradise has revealed what she believes happened to her young son.

Ben Needham was last seen on July 24, 1991, playing outside a run down farmhouse owned by his grandparents on the Greek island of Kos. The 21-month-old, who would now be in his early 30s, was never found, sparking a wave of conspiracy theories, the most predominant of which holds he was accidentally crushed by a digger driver and his body buried.

His mum Kerry Needham has never subscribed to the theory, however, and has instead advanced one of her own, believing her son was kidnapped by a trafficking gang.

Kerry Needham said her family did not initially suspect Ben was kidnapped(Image: Daily Mirror)

Speaking to The Sun, she said she believes her son may have fallen victim to a traveller trafficking gang that sold him into an illegal adoption racket. Speaking from her home of two years in Antalya, Turkey, she said she had received an email from a woman last week who believes her boyfriend may be her long lost son.

She said there were a “lot of coincidences”, and added that “a lot of things don’t add up from his past”, but has not thrown her entire weight behind the claims due to “very little information” about the man in question.

She said she forwarded the information to South Yorkshire Police, which has taken point on the British end of investigations while Greek police work in Europe. Her new theory, of which she was convinced more after speaking to a man who claimed to have been trafficked from Greece to New York, is a far cry from what she and her family initially believed.

Family members initially believed Ben disappeared as locals became concerned for his wellbeing(Image: Daily Mirror)

She said the family had not “thought for one minute” at first that the young boy may have been abducted, instead believing that he had simply been cared for by the local Greek community.

She said: “We thought someone must have found him, he must have got further down that lane than my mum thought he could have done in that time. We thought someone’s found him, taken him in, got him a drink, don’t forget it’s 90 degrees. All these logical things – maybe they’ll hand him into a police station afterwards or at the hospital, maybe he was dehydrated.”

Police are now set to DNA test the boyfriend of the woman Ms Needham has been speaking with, cops from South Yorkshire have said, after they “received a report” from her.

A key theory holds that Ben disappeared when he was accidentally killed by a digger driver(Image: Daily Mirror)

South Yorkshire Police said in a statement today: “We recently received a report of a woman who believes her partner to be missing person Ben Needham. Enquiries are ongoing into the report. Ben’s family are aware of this report, and we will continue to keep them up to date with our enquiries.

The service said in a statement that it would “continue to support” Ben’s family, saying: “We will continue to support them in their endeavour to discover the truth of what happened on 24 July 1991.”