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Tom Cruise helps search kidnapped boy
Tom Cruise has used his Twitter page to gather support for a renewed search for Ben Needham, who was kidnapped decades ago as a 21-month-old.
Tom Cruise has used his Twitter page to gather support for a renewed search for Ben Needham, who was kidnapped decades ago as a 21-month-old.
The Hollywood actor spread Needham’s story to his millions of followers on the social network site as part of a 24-hour Internet appeal.
Needham disappeared two decades ago on the holiday isle of Kos aged just 21 months. It sparked a huge but so far unsuccessful police search.
Fellow actor Tom Arnold and Coronation Street’s Kym Marsh have also added their support to the appeal.
The 24-hour Twitter marathon, Tweet 4 Ben, was arranged through an appeal website backed by Needham’s mother Kerry Grist.
The mega tweet, which aimed to get 10,000 followers on Facebook, caught the attention of Cruise and his tweet to 2.4 million people has given everyone involved a fresh impetus.
“There was a message that Tom Cruise had re-tweeted, it was like a different world, it was unreal. It shows that people, whoever they are, care and that is amazing for us,” the Daily Mail quoted Grist as saying.
Needham disappeared on July 24, 1991, while playing outside the farmhouse his grandparents were renovating on the Greek isle while his mum was at work at a local hotel.
Since then, Grist and her family have funded their own investigation into Needham’s disappearance, visiting the island dozens of times.
There have been hundreds of reported sightings but so far all have proved negative.
The Greek authorities continually ignored the family’s plea for help but have now officially re-opened case for the first time since the boy’s disappearance - and South Yorkshire police have travelled to Kos to liaise with their counterparts.
His DNA was also recently added to the Interpol database in the hope of securing a match.
