Police blunders ‘let six-year-old Rikki Neave’s killer go free for 3 decades’
A BOY of 13 who strangled a sixyear-old evaded suspicion for more than a quarter of a century, a jury heard yesterday.
James Watson, now 40, had a ‘grotesque’ interest in child murder but remained free due to police blunders, it was alleged.
Watson lured Rikki Neave in woods and killed him in November 1994 before ripping off his clothes and arranging his naked body in a star shape, the Old Bailey was told. Prosecutors wrongly charged Rikki’s mother with his murder.
Ruth Neave, then 28, was acquitted by a jury in 1996. The crime remained unsolved until a cold case review made a breakthrough using advances in DNA testing.
Samples taken from Rikki’s clothing matched the profile of Watson, the court heard.
Watson, who was said to have been ‘exhibiting a grotesque interest in the subject of child murder’ in conversations with his mother and teachers, was seen playing with the victim on a housing estate in Peterborough less than an hour before the murder.
He is alleged to have used his jacket to strangle Rikki, whose clothing was found dumped a wheelie bin.
Detectives spoke to Watson, who was in care, as a witness at the time. But he was not considered a suspect as officers wrongly believed Rikki was killed – hours later than he had been – by his mother, who was hooked on drugs and admitted mistreating her children.
Officers blamed her after the significance of sightings of Rikki with Watson ‘was misunderstood or ignored’, jurors heard.
Prosecutor John Price, QC, said: ‘This fundamental error deflected the focus of attention of the investigation. It took it away from where it should have been.’ When Rikki’s clothing was re-examined in 2015, using techniques not available at the time of the murder, adhesive tapings taken from his school uniform revealed traces of Watson’s DNA, the court was told. Watson was charged in February 2020.
Jurors were played a recording of Miss Neave’s 999 call to report her son missing at 6pm, around six hours after the murder.
His body was found by a police officer the next day in woodland five minutes from his home. Mr Price said it was a place where Rikki and his friends used to play.
‘He had been strangled. The body was naked. It was lying on the ground, flat on its back,’ he said. ‘It had been deliberately posed by the killer, in a star shape, with outstretched arms, and his legs placed wide apart.
‘There was no sign of any of Rikki’s clothing. But perched poignantly on a leaf, just 18 inches from the left hand, was a single, small, white shirt button.’
When he was interviewed at the time, Watson claimed he had exchanged only a few words with the younger boy and lied about not knowing him. But teachers noted his ‘conspicuous preoccupation’ with the murder in the days afterwards, Mr Price said.
The two boys had been spotted by witnesses ‘walking side by side’ towards the woods.
‘A combination of evidence shows Rikki walked willingly into the wood but did not walk out again,’ he said. ‘Pathological evidence shows it was most likely a surprise attack. It was one launched upon him suddenly, and from behind.’
Watson denies murder. The trial continues.
‘His body had been deliberately posed’