THE grandmother of Ben Needham has spoken of the family's despair after two Wrexham women stole a fund set up to find the child, who disappeared in Greece.

Mum and daughter Joan and Alison Jarvis were jailed for nearly four years each after stealing £23,000 collected to find young Ben, who vanished almost 13 years ago.

His grandparents, who kept the money under their bed at their home near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, said the theft had stopped them searching for their grandson.

Joan Jarvis, 49, and her 23-year-old daughter, of Cunningham Avenue, admitted burglary but denied taking the money after travelling hundreds of miles across the country and booking into a hotel in the area.

Judge John Machin, sitting at Lincoln Crown Court, ruled they had taken the search funds and jailed them for three years and nine months each.

The court heard Alison Jarvis was the exfiancée of Ben's uncle Danny and had visited the house, in Legsby, numerous times during their relationship.

In the months prior to the burglary, the pair split up and Alison Jarvis was allegedly left devastated.

On May 29 last year, Edwin Needham left home with his wife Christine and their two sons to go to an antiques fair for the weekend. That night they received a call from their landlord to say the house had been broken into.

They arrived home to find a side window broken and the search funds, along with around £4,000 in cash from their son's bedroom, were missing.

Judge Machin, sentencing the women said: 'By continuing to assert dishonestly your innocence in the removal of money, you have compelled the Needham family to have to come here and give evidence. You have deprived them of a fund which they had set aside in order to search for Ben.'

He labelled the offence 'utterly contemptible' and added: 'You have demonstrated absolutely no remorse whatsoever.'

He said the case had been particularly emotive as the money had been raised to search for a little boy, who was less than two when he disappeared from the island of Kos in July 1991.

Outside court, Christine Needham, 52, said she was relieved by the ruling, which followed a three-day trial of issue, and the substantial sentence.

She said: 'They deserved it. We can't find our grandson because of them.

She added that the family would have to start saving again to continue their search for Ben, but they would never give up.

They had spent years selling bric-a-brac and antiques to help raise the money, which they kept at home in case they had to rush off to Greece following a new lead.

Jarvis and her mother said they had broken into the home but had taken only a computer game. They admitted perverting the course of justice in relation to the case.

The pair remained expressionless as the judge ruled he could not accept their basis of plea to the burglary and they were handcuffed and taken down to the cells.