PREDATOR WHO KILLED RIKKI, 6
Sisters’ ‘cold case’ victory
THE murderer of schoolboy Rikki Neave was brought to justice yesterday after more than 27 years.
James Watson was 13 when he lured the six-year-old into woods and attacked him from behind, strangling him near his home in November 1994.
Police called him a “dangerous predator, fantasist and manipulator” who killed Rikki for sexual gratification.
An Old Bailey jury deliberated for 36 hours and 31 minutes to convict Watson on by a majority of 10 to two yesterday following an 11-week trial.
Watson, now 41, was watching the verdict on a video link.
The conviction came after Rikki’s sister Rochelle, 30, successfully challenged a 2018 decision by prosecutors to drop the case, claiming insufficient evidence.
Watson was finally charged in 2020 and Rochelle called his conviction a “victory” in her battle for justice.
She said Watson “thought he’d got away with it for many years and thought we were just going to go away”. She added: “We weren’t.”
Rochelle said she had lived in an abusive home and was later adopted along with sister Sheradyn Neave, 27.
She said Rikki was “so loving, so caring”. She said of biological mother
Ruth Neave, cleared of Rikki’s murder in 1996 but jailed for seven years after admitting child cruelty: “I can’t stand her. I can’t even look at her.”
Sheradyn said she believed a lot of evidence heard in Watson’s trial was known in 1994 and felt “let down” by police and social services.
Former assistant chief constable Paul Fullwood, who led the cold case investigation, said: “That little boy’s body was stripped naked, he was laid out in a pose for Watson’s sexual gratification. Watson dumped his clothes and thought he had got away with it.” Watson, in the days after the murder, showed a “grotesque interest” in the subject of child murder.
He molested a five-year-old boy the year before and had an obsession with dead animals, the trial heard.
His father Jim was a paedophile jailed for gross indecency against children. Watson’s previous convictions included one for an arson attack on a police station. He was seen with Rikki the morning he went missing by two neighbours on a Peterborough estate.
He was finally arrested in April 2016 after police found his DNA on tapings taken from Rikki’s clothing, but fled to Portugal before being extradited. He will be sentenced next month. tom.pettifor@mirror.co.uk
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