Ben Needham search team stops excavation work

The landowner approached detectives yesterday asking for the work to stop after an ancient burial ground was discovered.

Police officers involved in the search continued working and said they would challenge any court order should one be made.

The exact reason for the search team downing tools has not yet been revealed, but a police briefing is due this afternoon.

Ben vanished 25 years after ago while he was playing outside a farmhouse his grandfather was renovating in July 1991.

Detectives are now working on the theory that the Sheffield toddler, who was 21 months old at the time, may have been accidentally crushed and buried by a digger clearing a building plot nearby.