"Are you Ben?" A mother's desperate plea to her missing son.

Ben Needham was 21-months old when he went missing on the Greek Island of Kos. 23-years later his mother has taken to social media making a direct plea to Ben – who she believes may be still alive.

A mother speaks directly to her son.

“Please anyone get in touch and end all this pain your family feel living without you.”

A mother whose son went missing 23-years ago. A mother who never stopped searching.

It was 1991 and Kerry Needham from the UK was on holidays on the Greek Island of Kos. She had travelled there to visit her parents who lived on the island and she had taken work at the local tavern.

Kerry was at work when she found out the unthinkable had happened. Her mother Christine arrived crying, hysterical.

Choking back tears she told her that Kerry’s toddler Ben was missing. Christine had been looking after him when he disappeared from the front of the farmhouse the family had been renovating.

She had searched everywhere, scanning the fields, frantically flying through the house, but the tiny boy was gone.

He was 21-months old.

Over the years there have been over 300 sighting of Ben – a six-year old blonde boy living with a Greek family, a boy aged 10 playing on a beach at Rhodes, a Turkish boy in 1999.

But each and every time the leads led nowhere.

The case has been compared to that of missing British girl Madeline McCann. Computer generated images predicting what Ben would look like at age ten at age 14 and at 21 similar to what we see of Maddie. And like with Maddie McCann a case with no answers.

Through the years one person refused to give up hope – Ben’s mother, Kerry.

As time passed she continued the pressure to keep the investigation into her son’s disappearance, never doubting the chance that someone, somewhere may know something.

Kerry has now turned to social media making a direct appeal to Ben himself begging him to come forward.

She tells him “I love you just as much today as I did the day you were born.”

Her passionate plea is written in both English and Greek on her website.

“This is a direct appeal to anyone who is around 25 years old and possibly living with a family who you look nothing like, I beg you to get in contact with me.

“I promise to cause no problems for your family who you live with, I just want you to know the truth about what happened to you and to know you are healthy and happy.

“A simple DNA sample can be taken from you without causing any distress to anyone. So, if you think you were born in 1989 and you have blue/grey eyes and a possible birthmark on your leg, YOU could be Ben!!!

“Twenty-three years have gone by Ben and I love you just as much today as I did the day you were born, please anyone get in touch and end all this pain your family feel living without you.”

The case has been renewed recently with fresh funds invested into a team of detectives who will follow up a list of leads that the Needham family say were never investigated.

Over the years – again with striking similarities to the case of Madeline McCann – there have been hundreds of theories as to what happened to the small boy.

Only just in January a businessman came forward saying he knew a Roma gypsy family who had made claims they had sold a blonde boy after smuggling him off the island in fruit boxes.

For Kerry Needham there is always hope. Every lead, every sighting, every rumour a small glimmer which keeps her going.

Her aim is to share Ben’s image as far and wide as she can in the hopes that someone somewhere – or even Ben himself  -recognizes this much loved and missed little boy who has now grown into a man.

To visit the Help Find Ben website go here.