Paul Cheetham on Sky News

19 October 2012

Paul Cheetham, senior lecturer in Archaeological Science at Bournemouth University, spoke live on Sky News about the police search to find missing Ben Needham in Greece.

Ben vanished in Kos as a toddler in July 1991, and a team of experts, being led by South Yorkshire Police, have now gone out to the island to begin examining the grounds of the farmhouse from which Ben disappeared.

They will particularly focus on a large grassy mound near the house, which contained debris from a building site at the time of Ben's disappearance.

"There's no easy way to do this. I think from what I have gathered, they are taking the right approach and they are taking the appropriate equipment out there," said Paul.

"The thing is, of course, they are looking for a potentially small, very young child and it happened a long time ago, so it is going to be extremely difficult to locate any remains if they are there, without actually physically dismantling the mound, which I think is what they will probably have to do."

He added: "The issue is the time span really. A lot of the indicators that you would hope would help you to locate a body and remains are either not going to be there or very weak and it is going to be a very challenging task for the team, in my opinion."

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