Blogeditorial decision

1. Introduction

Sometimes the best way to play a game is to stand still and not budge an inch.

This can be because of one of 2 reasons.

The first is because one doesn’t know what to do and one feels that anything one does may be compromising in the present and in the future so one just stands as still and quiet as one possibly can and crosses one’s fingers very hard, prays desperately even if one is an atheist begging for things to better than the worst even if just slightly.

As an example, that’s what’s currently going on with the pro-McCann supporters at the moment. Their silence is very telling.

With the public announcement by South Yorkshire police that Ben Needham has died in an accident, they haven’t come out as expected in support of Kerry Needham.

Before we are accused of implying evil things about Kerry Needham, we are not. We are just saying that it’s highly convenient for the pro-McCann supporters to be proven that Ben Needham, the other high profile case of a missing British toddler, wandered momentarily away from his family and suffered an unfortunate fatal accident and that was what South Yorkshire police seemed to have implied.

Because of that, one would expect for the pro-McCanns to have closed ranks around Kerry and showed their utmost sympathy for her. Instead they have only offered silence.

The other reason for staying motionless and silent in a game is by option.

When one doesn’t want one’s opponent to know what one knows nor what assessments one has made of the opponent’s moves.

If the opponent side is made up of more than one player, as we think happens in this sick game the Maddie case has become, then the choice to stay still is aimed to step aside and watch how others are playing.

That’s what the blog has decided to do but we will get to that later on in the post.

First, we have to make 2 corrections and 1 clarification from last week’s post “The road of no return and apologies”.

None of them change any of the conclusions we came to last week, as the reader will see, but we do like to be as precise as we can.



2. Correction #1 – Toy car

The first correction we have to make is about the toy car. We showed the picture of a toy car and said it was one found by South Yorkshire police.

We must reprimand ourselves for not reading the caption properly: “Pictured: A toy car SIMILAR to the one belonging to Ben when he vanished that was discovered at the dig site in Greece. His grandmother, Christine, confirmed she recognised it as Ben's” (our caps)

It does say very clearly “similar”.

We even explained why it seemed to be in such a pristine condition.

We explained how that didn’t strike it as odd to us, because, as we said, the climate and the dry ground characteristics of Kos seemed to us as it would preserve a toy for 25 years.

We did find it strange for the police to have it cleaned it and polished it up but we supposed it was done after the required soil samples were taken from it and for reasons to have it presented to the media.

In a Mirror article, Christine Needham, the grandmother, seems to concur with us: “And of the car, she added: “I expected it to have no paint on but I was 90% sure it was Ben’s” and “obviously it had not rusted because it had been hidden in dust and not in the wet.”

We only don’t concur that it was hidden under dust, we are certain it was hidden under ground, buried.

But for now we want to recognise we were wrong.

The picture we showed last week was not of the item “found on Saturday, which I have shown personally to some of Ben’s family, was found in one of the targeted areas at the second site, very close to a dated item from 1991”, but a similar one.

How similar we don’t know, we will wait to see the real object to find out.

By the way, we still have to know what item was found near the toy cars that was dated from 1991. We are curious to know what it may be.

However, the fact that we were wrong, nothing alters what we said last week, that the toy car had to have been buried.

Saturday was at the end of the week South Yorkshire police spent searching second site.

Even if the toy that was found and that we haven’t seen is not in as in impeccable condition or as colourful as the similar one shown by the media, a toy car the size of a matchbox one would unquestionably have been spotted very quickly, and not have taken days, by the minute search if it had been above ground.

We maintain that the toy car, the original which we haven’t been shown, was buried.

And the fact that it was buried, as we said last week, rules out the possibility for Ben to have dropped it accidentally.



3. Geographical information

One thing we have noted is that unlike we had with the 2014 Praia da Luz Scotland Yard circus we don’t see in the media any aerial shots, or maps of the locations/areas where the sites in Kos were.

In fact, all we get to see is the farmhouse (which apparently is not the farmhouse but the outhouse of the farmhouse located across the street) and images of the ongoing works.

Isn’t that by itself really very strange?

With Luz, we got immediate knowledge where Scotland Yard were on their knees but with South Yorkshire police we don’t remember seeing any map pointing out where their activity took place on the island.

Everyone minimally interested in the Maddie case knows where Apartment 5A is, as it has been pointed out where it exactly is in Luz many times, but if we ask the reader to tell us where the farmhouse is on Google Maps, we doubt many will know. We didn’t and struggled to find it.

We struggled to find out where the farmhouse was as well as other locations related to the case. Even now we are not certain if we are right about the second site location.

About the first one we are because the building, like Apartment 5A, is now familiar to all, because it has been shown with frequency and the search site was very near it.

One could think that it’s like the media is making an effort with Kos to create the opposite effect they have done with Praia da Luz.

In the small town in the Algarve, all was done to make it seem bigger than it really is while in Kos it seems we’re being convinced things are very near each other when they’re not.

Why that may have been done is a question we leave for each one of our readers to wonder about.

Let’s then do what the media should have done and show readers the relative distances between places of interest in this case.

First let’s understand the size of the island. We think people perceive it to be much smaller than it really is:

It’s approximately the same size as the Isle of Wight and Madeira to use well-known references, although much less wider. We would say Kos is very similar in size to the Pico island of Azores:

Where the farmhouse is:

It’s on the East side of the island, relatively isolated, in an area with a number of olive groves:

(images taken from this video)

We think that other places of interest to the case in Kos are where:

(1) the Needham caravan was located (opposite Sandy Lane Hotel);

(2) the Kerry Needham’s apartment (we have no precise location, just that it was in the Kako Pinari area);

(3) the Palm Beach Hotel where Kerry worked.



4. Correction #2 – Distances

The second correction we have to make are the distances we implied were involved in last week’s post.

When we wrote it we were unaware of something very important: we didn’t know the location of the second searched site.

In our blissful ignorance, we thought the toy car had been found near the farmhouse, just down the road.

It isn’t and it is quite far from it. It’s about 650 metres (yellow markers for each 100 metres) from the farmhouse.

That’s very far, as in terms of a distance walked by a 21 month old little boy.

It’s impossible for the toy to have been dropped by Ben at that second search site, someone took it and in our opinion buried it there.

Again, Christine Needham agrees with us: “When I saw it I felt disbelief. It must have been dumped at that site by Dino. It didn’t walk there”.

Again we disagree with her in terms of it having been dumped, as we said, we are certain it was buried. About the toy having been dumped by Dino, or Konstantino Barkas, we neither agree nor disagree with her on content, because we are still waiting for South Yorkshire police to clarify that, but have to say we disagree with her for having said it because in doing so she denied Mr Barkas’ right to the presumption of innocence.

In her defense, the South Yorkshire police could have already told her by then, privately, that they thought it was Mr Barkas who did it but even if that was the case (something we are still waiting to know) it would be the kind of  information not to be used publicly until South Yorkshire police did it first, and hasn’t, yet.

The distance between the farmhouse and the second site makes it seem highly unlikely, not so say impossible, as Christine Needham does seem to agree with us, to be the location where the apparently alleged hit-and-run-by-bulldozer accident would have happened.

Besides, South Yorkshire police have made it clear they think an accident happened near the farmhouse and not 650 metres away from it: “my team and I know that machinery, including a large digger, was used to clear an area of land on 24 July 1991, behind the farmhouse that was being renovated by the Needham’s. It is my professional belief that Ben Needham died as a result of an accident near to the farmhouse in Iraklis where he was last seen playing”.

If one is to read the South Yorkshire police statement attentively, it even implies they think accident happened inside the farmhouse grounds: “that machinery, including a large digger, was used to clear an area of land on 24 July 1991, behind the farmhouse that was being renovated by the Needham’s”.

But, until South Yorkshire police tells us their version, all is speculation, except that the fatal accident they speak of happened near search site #1 and not near search site #2, approximately 650 metres from the farmhouse.


5. Clarification – Exempting v Accusing

The clarification we would like to make is about how we feel we have misled our readers when we used the expression of “prospective patsy” when referring to Konstantinos Barkas.

By using it, it may have seemed that we were clearing Mr Barkas from all and any wrongdoing in the case.

We weren’t.

Before letting the dogs loose on us or exhaling in relief, depending on which side of this particular fence the reader is, are we saying now that we think he has done something wrong?

No, we are not. Let that be very clear.

We are neither exempting him nor accusing him of anything.

And we’re doing the exactly the same with the Needham family. We haven’t said that they should be cleared nor haven’t accused them of anything.

It is up to the proper authorities to determine (and tell us) what wrongdoing happened, who did it, when, how and why they did it.

We remind you that, like we said last week, South Yorkshire police has not accused Mr Barkas or anyone of anything.

They have strongly implied that the accident happened with him but that last step has still to be walked and until it has, it hasn’t.

What we did when we qualified Mr Barkas as a “prospective patsy” was to acknowledge that he was indeed being used by the media as a “patsy”.

The media was the one saying that the police thought that Mr Barkas was the one who accidentally killed Ben.

Now, we did say last week that the hit-and-run-by bulldozer scenario wasn’t only highly unlikely as it seemed absolutely ridiculous to us.

A week has passed.

Now we have gathered more information since then and our opinion has NOT budged an inch.

We continue to find it ludicrous for Ben to have died as a result of a hit-and-run-by bulldozer accident near the farmhouse followed by an immediate removal of the body and a fantastic forensic cleaning of the site.

Absolutely preposterous, a reason why it’s our strongest belief that no bulldozer was directly involved in Ben’s death.

BUT that’s only our opinion, we don’t know the facts.

As we said last week, “and if they [South Yorkshire police] are determined to follow truth as much as we are then all will make sense, all will be clear, all pieces will fit and all questions will have a quick, transparent and logical answers with no ermms... whatsoever. Truth is unique, raises no questions, leaves no doubts.”

So, however improbable it may seem now, and it really does, if South Yorkshire police can give us all a reasonable beyond doubt version of events that prove Mr Barkas killed Ben accidentally, let us reassure readers that we will be the first ones to recognise that.

But it has to be directly from South Yorkshire police’s mouth. Not the media’s.

In a similar statement to the one they gave on Monday 17 in Kos.

And it has to be convincing because truth is always convincing.

Until then, we will keep to our opinion that Mr Barkas did not kill Ben accidentally.

And if it happens that South Yorkshire police’s official version ends up implicating Mr Barkas in a not very convincing manner, then at that moment he will stop being media's prospective patsy to become an effective official one and, if that time comes, then one will have to wonder and ask why.

Here we must highlight something. The fact that we have excluded, until proven wrong, Mr Barkas from killing accidentally Ben, doesn’t mean in any way, form or shape that we are including someone else. We have excluded Mr Barkas per proposed scenario and that’s it. We didn’t follow it with then it was X, Y or Z.

If people read it that way it’s their problem, not ours. If they have come to any such conclusions, it’s theirs, not ours.

We simply don’t think it was Mr Barkas and are waiting for South Yorkshire police to tell us who they think it was.

It’s a fact that investigators in an investigation should always use the exact opposite of presumption of innocence. To the investigators everyone should be considered potentially guilty until the facts prove them innocent and then, and only then, can be considered of no interest to the investigation.

Only the investigators and only during the investigation should people be considered potentially guilty and no one else. An investigation ends with conclusions and that’s what we are waiting for from the South Yorkshire police about Ben Needham’s disappearance.

It must be said that Mr Barkas does not appear out of the blue in this process.

From the information available (we repeat that we have no official information yet) his name appears as an integral part of the process, we believe as a witness.

It seems he saw a white Suzuki with 2 men and a woman inside, as Kerry refers on page 140 of her book: “an English speaking officer told us Barkas had reported seeing a white car parked along the lane on the day B had disappeared. He couldn't identify the passengers, but could tell there were 2 men in the front and a woman in the back.
'They took your baby'”

From the wording above it seems like the supposition of the baby having been taken by the people in this car is more an assessment made by the Greek policeman from whatever Mr Barka said to the police than him having said that himself. 

As far as we have been able to ascertain, at the time he was working about 100 metres North of the farmhouse, we believe would be this house:

This property, as far as we could find out, was neither searched in 2012 nor now in 2016.

To note that in 2012 he was already the centre of attention in the Kos searches as one can read in the Mirror article of October 18, 2012 by Tom Parry and Lucy Thorton “Ben Needham sensation: British police to start digging mound in Greece near to where boy went missing”.

About the libel suit the Barkas family has said it will file against Kerry Needham, all we have to say about it is that we agree an offended party has the right to defend itself legally.

However, we feel we should remind readers that filing libel suits against others does not necessarily mean that one is innocent. We do keep reminding the McCanns of that, don’t we? Presumption of innocence is not the same as a declaration of clearance as the McCanns are repeatedly reminded.

Again, let us be clear that we are not making any sort of bad comparison between the Barkas family and the McCanns. Libel laws exist and are there to be used by the McCanns, the Barkas and by anyone else who feels they should. Each case is a case and should be analysed as such.

That said, it must be noted that to say that Mr Barkas is innocent based on the fact he may be suing Kerry Needham is as wrong as her saying he “could burn in hell” before knowing what the official South Yorkshire police official position is.

Until we’re shown otherwise, Mr Barkas benefits from the presumption of innocence. For that reason, and that reason alone, we think it was premature for Christine Needham to have said it was Mr Barkas who dumped the toy car in the second search site location and for Kerry Needham to have said he could burn in hell, however emotional they felt when they said it.

One thing is certain, and that is that both sides cannot be right at the same time on this and it’s up to South Yorkshire police to tell us who is.

Another reason, among many, for the South Yorkshire police to come quickly and clarify what they officially think happened. What they said on Monday 17th was not enough.

We, for one, are waiting eagerly.

We really do want to find out to what South Yorkshire police has committed itself to.



6. Blogeditorial decision

For the last month, we confess we have been baffled trying to figure why what was happening was.

To be honest, nothing seemed to make sense but then the pieces have slowly began to fall into place.

We have said before that we consider ourselves as armchair journalists and feel quite proud of it.

And we do like to think ourselves as responsible armchair journalists but that is something only those who read us can say.

We do have one huge advantage over the paid journalists and that is we are not pressured by sales. That allows us to have no loyalty to anyone or anything but the truth.

In that spirit, we have up to now been informing readers about how we saw the game was being played.

For the last 8 years, by revealing the different moves as we saw them being played, we hope that we have put on a pressure which we would like to think has avoided having those deciding to pursue other avenues than truth.

All we did, do and will do is because we are moved by the thought that it was the best way we could, as anonymous citizens, to help the truth about what happened to Maddie to emerge.

That is the beacon that has guided, guides and will guide us.

But now, on analysing things as they are happening, that beacon is telling us it’s best we shut up. That it’s what is the best the blog can do at this particular stage of the game to help truth emerge.

To be very clear we aren’t responding to scare tactics. Those of us who survived the Maddie battlegrounds of 2008 and 2009 think we can handle such shameful behaviour.

We are not abandoning case, nor are we backtracking on anything. We are not going away, just stepping aside during this stage of the game.

We won’t close the blog or delete any posts.

We have just made a blogeditorial decision which is to simply step aside and let other players play while we watch.

For obvious reasons, we won’t explain what reasons are behind this decision and we hope that our readers trust our judgement.

When we feel we should return, we will. Hopefully soon to comment about the outcome of the Lisbon trial but that doesn’t really count.

Before we break we would like to leave with the following list of facts about Ben Needham’s case:

#1 – A witness, in May, allegedly provided South Yorkshire police with evidence about what may have happened to Ben;

#2 – In September, 4 months later, and we suppose based on whatever the May witness said, the South Yorkshire police announced that it was going to proceed with a second diligence in Kos.

We find this fact particularly disturbing as it was giving, very publicly, one very reasonable head-start to anyone in Kos wanting to get rid of any evidence they feared could be compromising.

Plus, by publicly forewarning Kerry Needham to prepare herself for the worst, that Ben could be dead they made it pretty clear to those potentially involved in any way with Ben’s death to doubly certify that no condemning vestiges would ever be found.

To top it all, after mentioning the possibility of death, South Yorkshire police doesn’t take any EVRD dogs with them;

#3 – South Yorkshire police spent the first 2 weeks on Kos on the 1st search site that was in the farmhouse grounds where Ben, grandfather, grandmother and uncle had been in the afternoon he disappeared.

Some of the searches were so close to the building that they even demolished a part of it because of that.

Bulldozers were used;

(image from here)

#4 – On the first week of searches, on the 1st site, South Yorkshire police had made an exact replica of the sandals Ben wore on the day he disappeared.

It seems someone thought that such a pair was necessary to make sure the officers involved in the search, in case they found a pair of toddler sandals while searching for vestiges of a toddler in the farmhouse grounds, wouldn’t ignore them;

#5 – South Yorkshire police on the 3rd week moved to the second search site, again certainly based on the testimony given by the witness who came forward in May,  approximately 650 metres from the farmhouse.

#6 – On the second search site, on Saturday 15th, just hours from calling off the searches they find a toy car;

#7 – Kerry Needham identifies this toy car as 100% Ben’s;

#8 – Grandmother Christine says she’s 90% sure it’s one of the two toy cars Ben had;

#9 – On Monday 17th, South Yorkshire police hold a press conference to say Ben DIED, and that this certainty was deduced from the finding of this toy car. The toy car is, apparently, the basis of South Yorkshire police accidental death thesis.

#10 – On that same Monday 17th, the Mirror published the article by Lucy Thornton and Andy Lines “Ben Needham's grandfather reveals he spoke to man suspected of killing the youngster on day he vanished”, in which this is written:

“After Ben vanished Ed said he trawled the area, scoured the site where Dino had been working and even looked in and around the digger for any sign of Ben.

He said: “I searched all round that digger. I even searched the bucket in case Ben had climbed on to it or done something silly like that.””.

#11 and #12 – On Tuesday 18th and on Friday 21st, Ben’s sister raises doubts about the car being Ben’s and says family still believe Ben alive;

#13 – On Sunday 23rd, Needham’s barrister, Mr Ian Brownhill, issues a statement saying “Ms Needham and her family are at present in a period of reflection but will continue to seek the truth surrounding Ben's disappearance. Those of us assisting the Needham family will continue to do so fearlessly, the overarching aim always being to reunite this family and protect the rights of a mother and her child”.

Mr Brownhill worked pro bono for the Needhams in 2015 when the Home Office then led by current Prime-Minister Theresa May, was pressured, successfully, for funds to search for Ben;

#14 – On Monday 24, the Twitter account @FindBenNeedham published the following: “Please join us on 29th October 2016 to celebrate Ben's 27th birthday by changing your profile picture for the day”.

This blog is about Maddie and it never stopped being so.


Post Scriptum:

Comment we received:

“Unknown has left a new comment on your post "Blogeditorial decision":

http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2016-10-28/picture-exclusive-the-toy-car-that-led-to-end-of-ben-needham-search/

Posted by Unknown to Textusa at 28 Oct 2016, 18:57:00”

From the video linked above, the original car that was found:

And 2 pictures from the second searching site:

The transcript of the video: 

“This tiny toy car , slightly battered and scratched after more than 25 years underground and measuring less than 3 inches by 1 inch, is the main and perhaps the only significant item found after a painstaking and laborious search in the area where Bem Neddham was last seen-

It’s a Mercedes toy imported from China.

It was found at the second excavation fly-tipping area, 750 yards from the farmhouse known to be used by Konstantinos Barkas who South Yorkshire police believe killed the toddler in an accident with his JCB digger.

He died last year, his family denied he had any involvement.

The toy was found next to a tin can which could be dated to 1991- It was found on Saturday the 15th, one day before the date was due to end. The car was shown to family members who came to the island the same day.

(DI Cousins) “The family had been shown the item, clearly it was very distressing and emotional for everybody that was present when that was done and it’s fair to say that I want to do some further work on it to ensure that that confidence remains as it is, if not grows.”

The car, made by a Chinese company called Summer, looked like this when first bought. It was part of a series of race cars made in the late 80s, early 90s.

On the day Ben went missing, his grandmother Christine took him to the farmhouse in a pushchair. Ben was knocking 2 toy cars together, the other has not been found.

In September, after Ben’s mum Kerry had been told to prepare for the worst by South Yorkshire police after a witness came forward pinpointing areas where Ben could have been taken, she was angry at the time it had taken for him to reveal information.

(Kerry Needham) “I could have done something with my life, instead of having a life on hold and not being able to do anything or focus on anything and living this nightmare, could have ended 25 years ago”.

Tomorrow the family, some of whom are together over the weekend, will take time out to mark Ben’s 27th birthday. It will be a difficult day.

They travelled thousands of miles looking for him, while all along, according to South Yorkshire police’s conclusion he was never further than 750 yards from the last place he was seen.

Mark Witty, ITV News”

Thank you, Unknown!

Following the publishing of this Post Scriptum, we received the following comment:

“Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Blogeditorial decision":

Hi. If it is useful to you here is the street view of the second dig site:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@36.8796499,27.3130186,3a,75y,179.91h,95.11t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sj8Ju2Ca83DTV3vYzomXZgA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The Google car is on the road traveled that day by the Needhams. And this site wasn't in any way a "secret" dumping site of Dino as the press have claimed. You can clearly see how close the rubble is to the road.

Posted by Anonymous to Textusa at 28 Oct 2016, 20:16:00”

This is the Google Street View images Anonymous 28 Oct 2016, 20:16:00 is referring to:

Thank you Anon!



Post Scriptum II:

Thanks to the ITV video and the pictures from a BBC News online article (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-37572865) we were able to establish where exactly was the second search site.

It is very near to the indicated, just around 50/100 metres further Southwest:

That’s where South Yorkshire police found the Chinese made toy car. We are still trying to find a “Summer” toy manufacturing Chinese company. But we haven’t lost hope yet.