Rikki Neave murder: James Watson jailed for 15 yearson June 24, 2022 at 11:41 am

The killer of a six-year-old schoolboy who evaded justice for nearly three decades has been jailed for a minimum of 15 years.

Rikki Neave’s naked body was found deliberately posed in a star shape near his Peterborough home the day after he disappeared in November 1994.

He had been strangled and, in April this year, James Watson, now 41 but 13 at the time, was convicted of murder.

At the Old Bailey, Watson was given a life sentence.

The judge, Mrs Justice McGowan, previously stated the minimum term in prison would reflect that Watson was a child when he killed Rikki.

He was the second person to stand trial for Rikki’s murder, after the boy’s mother Ruth Neave was cleared by a jury in 1996.

Watson was convicted after a cold case investigation opened in 2015, during which adhesive tapings from his clothes were examined and a DNA match to him were made.

He claimed he may have lifted Rikki to help him see over a fence, but police found archive TV footage showing there was no fence at the time.

Watson had been spoken to as a witness in the original investigation after he was reported as being seen with Rikki.

Rikki’s last meal of Weetabix fixed his time of death at about midday, which meant the boy was killed shortly after being seen with Watson.

Jurors heard Watson strangled his victim with a ligature or anorak collar to fulfil a “morbid fantasy” and stripped Rikki and posed his naked body in a star shape.

During sentencing, prosecutor John Price QC said there was “the clearest possible indication” of a sexual motive in the way Rikki’s body was displayed in woodland near his home on the Welland estate.

But Mrs Justice McGowan and the defence team said there was no evidence of sexual activity.

Jennifer Dempster QC, counsel for Watson, said her client’s most substantial mitigation was his age at the time.

She said there were “particularly sensitive matters” in Watson’s life – not aired during the trial – which made him vulnerable and she cited him being taken into care in 1993 after being assaulted by his father.

Ms Dempster said his education and childhood was “affected by being let down by a variety of adults in his life who ought not to have done so”.

While she was cleared of killing her son, Ms Neave was jailed for seven years for child cruelty – a charge she has subsequently claimed to have been “bullied” into admitting.

Speaking after Watson’s conviction for a BBC documentary, to be broadcast on Friday, Ms Neave said she wanted to clear her name over the cruelty conviction.

She said she was also seeking an apology from Cambridgeshire Police over the original investigation which had led to “everybody thinking I murdered my son”.

You can watch the interview with Ruth Neave as part of the BBC’s The Big Cases series, available on BBC iPlayer from 18:30 BST on Friday.

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