"Many of us are familiar with the tragic tale of Ben Needham, who was also two years old when he went missing, apparently kidnapped on the Greek Island of Kos in 1991. Well, a West Midlands Company has now joined the search for Ben by creating a special website dedicated to him. I am joined now in the studio by Ben's mum Kerry, Kerry good afternoon to you," Chris

"Good afternoon" Kerry

"Thank you for coming in to see us today, and Eddie Bowcott who is Chairman of Childlo.st, and you have got a website on the go at the moment, Eddie?" Chris

"Yes, good afternoon. It is www.childlo.st, the dot goes between the o and the s, it is just a one-word domain, not a dot com or a dot org and we are very busy at the moment with the situation with Sarah Payne as we all know." Eddie

"We will talk about the Sarah Payne case in a moment, but Kerry is with us, as I say, who is the mother of Ben. I remember this, not as vividly as you obviously, but I read the newspapers and the story is still well and truly with us and now on the website as well. Just remind those who don't know as much what happened. Let's go back to 1991 if we may." Chris

"Well, myself and my family were living in the Island of Kos, my father was renovating an old farmhouse for a Greek man, that afternoon on 24th July my mother had taken Ben up for a walk to see his grandad and take my father some lunch. Between 2.30 pm and 3 o'clock, nobody knows exactly, you know, what time it was, Ben had gone quiet and my mother went outside an open door, not a closed door, to find that Ben was no longer there. It had only been a matter of minutes before she had checked on him previously. In minutes he had gone." Kerry

"At that stage, presumably, no great panic or worry, little boys do wander about, don't they?" Chris

"That's right. The initial thought by everyone was he can't be far away, he was only 21 months old, how far can a 21 month old child go, the immediate area was searched, his name was called, gardens were checked, but nothing was found." Kerry

"And how long do you stay on Kos at that period of time whilst the search was on initially for Ben?" Chris

"We didn't leave Kos until the middle of September. Ben had disappeared in July and eventually the strain and the torment of it all took its toll and we had to leave back to England in September." Kerry

"In the many many sightings of Ben, when did the first ones filter through, were you still on Kos then, or had you left and come back to Sheffield?" Chris

"We had left and come back to Sheffield. I think it was the following summer season, around about April, May June time when the tourists start coming back abroad again, because obviously we had only had the initial publicity in Greece and when we got back and then the appeals came out then after that, when we were strong enough then to deal with the media, and things like that, it has got to have been the next following year, when all the sightings kept coming in" Kerry

"I just want to stop you there for a second, I do apologise, I need this to work the first time, and I can see a little bit of tape whizzing around here. You must have told this story, how many times now?"  Chris

"Thousands. And written and spoken it." Kerry Needham

"You will keep telling it as long as you have to, won't you?"ECB

"I will, definitely. I will speak until it takes my last breath if I have to." Kerry

"Right, here we go again, just make a note of an edit there. So the first sightings coming in, were as you say, when the next summer season arrived. Now, Ben I can see the pictures, he was very blond as you are, a very blond lad, not looking the archetypal Greek kid, I wouldn't have thought. So very easy to spot. How much credence did you put on the initial sightings?" Chris

"We put 100% on every one, every one that we got, our hearts raced, this is it, it's ended, my whole family clung together and said, 'this is it, it's ended, we've found him, but as time goes on and the more frequent trips we made to Greece we found how common blond boys were throughout Greek families and Greek people are now marrying with British ladies, Norwegian ladies, Scandinavian, German and you do get blond-haired Greeks." Kerry

"Ben would be coming up to a teenager now?" Chris

"He will be eleven in October." Kerry

"Not far off, though, do you believe he is still alive?" Chris

"Of course. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever, he is alive-" Kerry

"Why hasn't he been in touch?" Chris

"I think from the understanding that we have, our own theory as to what could have happened to Ben is that he was abducted by Gypsies, and he has now gone through a child-selling organisation which is big throughout Greece, so we have found out, and his tracks have been very, very well hidden and nobody can get to these people." Kerry

"The authorities in Greece (laughs) I know it doesn't make great radio, but I can tell by the look on your face what you meant, maybe if it is not too painful you can tell us about that." Chris

"In my opinion, and I think my family's, I speak to my whole family, the investigation into Ben's disappearance was not taken seriously. The initial blame, if you like, and suspicion was on us, which I can understand, any police force would have done the same, but it was only one thing at a time was done. The family were interrogated, one after the other, which took days, hours - five to six hours at a time. But instead of doing these investigations and the interrogations with us, as well as looking outside for Ben - it just wasn't done that way. The port and the airports were not notified of Ben's disappearance until three days after, that gave whoever took Ben plenty of opportunity to leave that island." Kerry

"How many times have you told this story?" Chris

"Thousands" Kerry

"I would say so."

"Thousands of times" Kerry

"Will you continue telling this story another thousand times?" Chris

"Of course. If it takes my last breath, if the very last interview that I have to do takes my breath, I will do it, as long as people out there know that Ben's still missing, people out there know that we want Ben back, and Ben is out there and he deserves to know the truth of what happened to him." Kerry

"He is coming of the age now where he will ask questions." Chris

"Of course, yes." Kerry

"He will ask questions about his background. We can only hope that maybe he will take it a step further." Chris

"He will take it a step further. Ben is now living, he is at an age now where he can understand things and if there are things wrong within his family life, if he is slightly different to the people that he is with, he is going to start asking questions and then Ben is going to be feed more lies. He is living his life through a web of lies, and no matter how much it would break my heart if he never came back to me, I want him to know the truth. I want him to know that I didn't give him up, he was always loved, he was always cared for, he was always wanted and he still is wanted. At least people have got to know that." Kerry

"Technology has accelerated incredibly over the last ten years, the ten years we are talking about since Ben went missing. We now have the internet, websites, which takes us on to Eddie Bowcott here, this can only aid tracking down lost souls, can't it?" Chris

"We believe where Ben are concerned, children today and young adults are very computer literate, and there is a good chance that Ben may go on the worldwide web and locate through childlost his information, he may question his origin and this may be the link that Kerry has been waiting for for the last nine years." Eddie

"How long have you had Ben's name on the website?" Chris

"Well the site only started on 25^th May, because that was national missing children's day in the United States and we are linked to a lot of christian agencies in America, so that was the ideal time for the site to be set up. We believe there is a need for it in the United Kingdom, I am a part of a lot of children's charities, including the Edwards Trust in Birmingham and people were saying to me that there was a need for such a service in the United Kingdom and the need has been proven with the situation with Sarah." Eddie

"Sarah Payne?" Chris

"Yes, and we are going to do the same now with Ben. The full report from day one is on the web for Sarah Payne" Eddie

"How many hits have you had on it, do you know?" Chris

"In excess of 28,000 hits since Sarah Payne was posted. It is a lot of traffic, in fact our server went down for two hours today because of the amount of traffic on there." Eddie

"I sometimes wonder if you can have too much information" Chris

"I don't think so, personally." Eddie

"You are quite happy with the machinery going down for a couple of hours if it throws up the vital clue, and this applies to Ben as well of course." Chris

"I think the reason our server went down this afternoon was because a lot of people were spending a lot of time, there is a lot of information on Sarah, and people are spending ten, twelve, fifteen minutes on the site and when you have got the traffic that was hitting the site today, there could be as many as 300 or 400 on it at any given time, and so we did have a fault, but we are back on the air again comfortably at the moment." Eddie

"I'm not going to suggest anything, I will ask you straight out, with Ben's information, does that run to page after page?" Chris

"With Ben's information, it will be in English and in Greek, purposely, and initially it will start off with several pages. The important part about this site is that it is a site that has been put together entirely by Kerry, the Mother, and the grandparents, Ed and Christine, and so the information will be very relevant. There will be some old information and some fresh, new information, and a lot of very very interesting stories that I am sure will aid we hope, if Ben's alive, and it will definitely aid in finding him." Eddie

"Will you give me that address again please? Nice and slowly, because I'm a bit of a luddite." Chris

"What we have to remember with this site, this web address is that it is not a dot com or a dot org, it is just a name childlost. So it is www.childlo.st, but you put the dot between the "o" and the "s" in the word." Eddie

"No dot after the "t"?"

"No dot after the "t", just between the "o" and the "s" in the word lost. It is very easy to remember." Eddie

"People might say that 'you are be-labouring the plain, Chris,' but I don't care. www.childlo.st, all one word, with the exception between the "o" and the "s" there is a dot." Chris

"I will explain just quickly the reason for this, the "st" is actually the suffix. All website addresses have to have a suffix, and we have used the suffix as part of the word, so it is really easy on the memory." Eddie

"Eddie Bowcott Chairman of the childlo.st website, thank you very much indeed, and Kerry Needham, thank you and you know our thoughts are with you, as are millions of others." Chris

"Thank you very much" Kerry Needham

"Yes thank you" Eddie