TV producer angers police over lost Ben

A BRITISH television producer making a documentary about the search for Ben Needham, the British boy who disappeared on the island of Kos in 1991, has angered Greek and British police by holding back potentially important leads for more than three weeks.

Caroline Mylon, who is also a trustee of Britain's National Missing Persons Helpline, received four phone calls from a man calling himself Andoni, who claimed to know where Ben, aged four, was living and who was holding him.

The informant was also interested in a pounds 20,000 reward put up by two British businessmen from Sheffield, Ben's home. Since his disappearance, his mother, Kerry Needham, aged 23, and his father, Simon Ward, have made several trips to Kos to find him. The new information appears to be the most significant lead so far.

The details were scant, but the boy was said to have been renamed Andreas and was living with a man named Nikos in the coastal town of Katerini in Greek Macedonia. There was also a general description of the house where he was living.

Ms Mylon quickly went to the town and began searching for the boy without telling the local police. They eventually

received details of the tip-off via formal police channels and

began their own extensive search, putting 20 officers on the case.

They put up hundreds of posters with computer-enhanced pictures showing what Ben should look like today. They have also been combing public records to see if a boy named Andreas was registered.

In the meantime Ms Mylon had interviewed locals and conducted an extensive search for the house where Ben was said to be living.

The report of her investigation, in which she said she had met 'locals who spoke of knowing Andreas and a man named Nikos', was passed not to the Katerini police, but to Yorkshire Television in Britain and eventually to the South Yorkshire Police.

By this time Ms Mylon had left Greece for the former Yugoslavia, and it was not until last Wednesday, some three weeks later, that Katerini police were given the information.

Last Friday - after finally receiving a copy of her briefing to Yorkshire Television via the British consul in Athens - Katerini police were still waiting to hear from Ms Mylon.

'We are very anxious to hear from Caroline,' a spokesman for the police said.

Sergeant Bert Norburn of South Yorkshire police, who is spearheading the investigation, is equally mystified as to why Ms Mylon went 'out of the frame on a trip to Yugoslavia' when she apparently had such a strong lead.

Douglas McKellar, Britain's senior consular official in Athens, is also exasperated by what has happened, after spending weeks desperately trying to track down Ms Mylon to verify the information.

Police are working on the assumption that Ben, who went missing on Kos 21 months ago, may have been abducted to be sold to a childless couple. Desperately poor peasants and refugees from the Balkans have been known to earn money by selling their children on to what they hope will be a better life.

Ms Mylon told the Independent on Sunday that she had been investigating quietly and was aware that the chief of the security police in Katerini wanted to speak to her. She said that she had found a house in Katerini matching the description provided by the informant.

It was occupied by a perfectly normal Greek family with older children and 'there was no Andreas or Nikos' she said.

But when she asked local people about Nikos 'they reacted as though they probably knew who I was talking about', she said.

Ms Mylon speculates that Nikos is a wealthy man whom people are afraid to identify because they owe him money.

She did not explain why she then left for Yugoslavia without fully briefing the authorities.

'She will not come out of this covered in glory,' said Sgt Norburn yesterday.

(Photograph omitted)