Police searching for missing toddler Ben Needham say they have found items of "slight interest", including fabric.

The 21-month-old little boy vanished on the holiday island of Kos 25 years ago from an arid stretch of farmland where his grandfather was doing up a property.

A 19-strong team of Yorkshire Police officers, forensic specialists and an archaeologist are investigating the site and digger teams started work on Monday afternoon to break up the clay-like ground.

Hope that Ben Needham mystery will finally be solved

It was the first day of a fresh excavation at the site following new evidence that the Sheffield toddler may have been killed and buried there.

Detective Inspector Jon Cousins said the team, together with local search and rescue volunteers, had made good progress.


Image: Kerry Needham (R), pictured with her mother, Christine Needham, has never given up hope of finding her son

He said: "We found, as expected, a vast number of bones yesterday. Each one was examined immediately, and each one was discounted there and then as being an animal bone.

"There are some other items that are of slight interest - the odd piece of fabric. That is being analysed and looked at, but there is slight interest.

"Everything is being carefully looked at."

He added: "We want to make sure: do they or do they not relate to any of the items Ben was wearing on that day?"

Image: The site being investigated lies about two miles east of Kos town

Ben's mother, Kerry Needham, has been told to "prepare for the worst" by investigators, who now suspect her son may have died in an accident on the day he vanished.

The toddler was wearing a white and green shirt and a pair of leather sandals when he went missing on 24 July, 1991.

The items have been forensically collected and photographs taken and sent to colleagues in the UK before a decision is made on whether they will need further examination and testing.

Image: A 19-strong team of experts is taking part in the search

Mr Cousins said: "We got ahead of time which meant we got digging a little bit earlier than I expected.

"So far it is going better than to plan, which I'm pleased about."

The search is being conducted around two miles east of the island's historic town centre and is expected to last for at least a week.

Greek national Pete Dedes, a Northumbria Police inspector on secondment to help with the operation, said the search for clues was "painstaking" but necessary.

Speaking from the scene, he said: "There are a lot of people helping us out from the volunteer services - the Greek search and rescue.

"It is painstaking work, we are going down to fragments as small as 1cm that we're looking at so it takes time.

"It's laborious, it's not exciting by any sense of the word, but it has to be done, it has to be done methodically, and it has to be analysed to the very last grain of sand, basically."