The mother of Ben Needham is pleading with the Government to dedicate the same resources to search for her missing son as those allocated to look for Madeleine McCann . The plea followed the recent £192,000 grant by the Home Office to the Met Police for probing into Madeleine's disappearance, pushing the total expenditure on the case to £13.2million since she went missing in 2007.

Ben's mum, Kerry Needham, said that over a span of nearly double the years - 32 years - South Yorkshire Police received less than £2million to aid in finding what happened to her son, Ben. She was glad for Madeleine's parents acknowledging: "I am glad for Madeleine's parents because I know the horror they're going through."

However, she felt the additional funding given to the Met was like "a kick in the stomach" for her and other families with missing children.

Kerry, who is 51 now, voiced: "No missing child should be more important than another."

Ben, who was just 21 months old then, disappeared on the Greek island of Kos following the family's relocation from Sheffield. Some 18 years later, Madeleine, aged three, was reported missing from a holiday villa in Portugal, reports the Mirror .