A team of British police officers including police search specialists, a forensic archaeologist and cadaver sniffer dogs, arrived in Kos last week to help a Greek investigation that focuses on a large mound of earth close to where Ben Needham was last seen in July 1991, when he was 21 months old. The team of British experts, began examining the ground on Friday.

Ben’s mother, Kerry Needham, has also returned to Kos with her parents to help the police with any questions but she says she probably won’t go to the site where Ben vanished: “The place kills me, so knowing what the police are doing there, I don’t think my emotions could take it.”

Mrs Needham, who has always believed that her son was abducted and is still alive, said she hopes that the new searches will put speculation that he died in an accident “to rest”.

She added she felt “happy” about the latest development even though she realises that the British team are looking for Ben’s body: “I’m just thinking of it along the lines of an elimination process. Once they know Ben is not up at Iraklis, where he went missing from, then obviously a full worldwide search is going to be done,” she told ITV Calendar news.

One theory is that builders working in the area at the time Ben went missing could have unwittingly buried the youngster beneath rubble in a large mound, which is now grassed over. However, Ben’s mother said she believes that the mound, near the family’s farmhouse in the tiny village of Iraklis, was already there when her son disappeared.

South Yorkshire Police stated  “Greek police are pursuing a line of enquiry centred on the grounds of the property from which Ben disappeared in 1991 aged 21 months.” The operation, which is expected to last ten days, follows a request from Greek police for specialist support.

Senior Greek authorities on Kos confirmed they had granted permission for a forensic search and excavation on the island, in the area where Ben had been playing before he vanished, in the hope of finding the little boy’s body.

Police chief Stergios Sentonas said: “We are granting the search and excavation permit in order to exhaust and satisfy every single, possible suspicion.”

Angela Smith, the Labour MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, who has supported Mrs Needham and her family, said she believed the latest search was important as it ruled out another line of inquiry.

In 1991, Ben’s disappearance sparked an international hunt, with the Greek police alone logging up to 200 possible sightings of the missing boy. In the months and years after he disappeared, the most common theory was that he had been snatched by gypsies.