Accused killer, 40, of schoolboy Rikki Neave revealed a ‘wealth of new detail’, court hears

The accused killer of schoolboy Rikki Neave gave a ‘wealth of new detail’ when he was interviewed by police 22 years after the murder, a court heard.

James Watson was 13 when he allegedly strangled the six-year-old in a wood in Peterborough, left his body in a ‘star shape’ pose and dumped his clothes in a wheelie bin 27 years ago.

The killer remained with the victim’s body for an hour and made no attempt to conceal it, the Old Bailey has heard.

Rikki’s mother Ruth Neave was wrongly accused of his murder and cleared by a jury in 1996.

Jurors have heard sophisticated DNA testing, used on Rikki’s clothes in a ‘cold case review’ in 2015, found a ‘definitive match’ with Watson.

Now aged 40,  Watson denies murdering Rikki, between November 28 and 29, 1994.

In his original police statement in 1994, Watson said he encountered a ‘small boy’ while walking to his father’s house and they had a brief exchange about a nearby digger before parting ways.

He said at the time he did not know Rikki.

Re-interviewed by police in July 2015, Watson said: ‘I have now read my original statement and I trust myself that what I said then is what happened.’

But a year later, Watson gave another account of his meeting with Rikki in which he ‘introduced a wealth of new detail’.

He told police: ‘I picked him up, chucked him over the, you know, over the fence.

‘Not chucked him over the fence but you know held him up over the fence, watched the guys doing the work.

‘And then we left and walked off down the second hill…we walked off here and I carried on my route here across, through these houses across home.

‘I’m guessing I would’ve just picked him up under his arm pits and lifted him up the fence.

‘I couldn’t, I wouldn’t swear on it… that I would’ve just picked him up from behind under his armpits and held him up against this fence for you know half a second or thirty seconds or so while he had a look at the diggers.

‘I guess yeah we finished having a look at the, the guys digging there… and then we both, we both went off.’

John Price, QC, prosecuting, said: ‘Never having previously given an account of this meeting which comes even close to explaining how DNA of his should have been found on the dead boy’s clothes, why on of April 19, 2016 was Mr Watson able to put forward an answer to that crucial question before it had even been asked of him?’

During a previous interview the same day, Watson was asked what he may have seen or read about the new investigation.

He told police he had watched a recent TV feature on the case, broadcast on BBC Crimewatch.

‘If the person who strangled and stripped Rikki Neave watched it, he will have heard DCI Waite speaking about the new investigation,’ Mr Price said.

‘Again, prominence was given in Mr Waite’s remarks, to the potential for uncovering new, though unspecified, scientific evidence.’

At the time, the DNA match with Watson’s profile had yet to be discovered, jurors heard.

Mr Price added: ‘If the killer of Rikki Neave was watching, he knew he had stripped the body.

‘He knew he had put the clothing in the bin.

‘He knew he had handled it.

‘Being the one person who knows the truth of it all, as he watched and listened, if he did, what would the killer have made of this?

‘Might he have feared there was a real risk he was about to be identified all these years later?’

Detectives questioned the sudden appearance of ‘the fence’ in Watson’s account, the court heard.

Mr Price said: ‘It was pointed out to him that whereas in December 1994 in his witness statement he had spoken of his preferred route from Rotherby Grove through to Ragdale Close at that point being blocked by a digger, now in 2016 he was saying that a fence had been the obstacle.

‘He was asked why that change had happened.

‘He had marked where the fence stood [on a plan].

‘It was at the same northwest end of the alleyway…which he had pointed out as the place where he had met Rikki to the police at 12:20 on December 5, 1994, though that statement made no mention at all of any fence.’

But there were no fences in that area on that Monday in 1994.

Video footage, recorded for a documentary about the case between November 28 and December 15 that year, proves this, jurors were told.

‘There would, we submit, have been no cause on that day for Mr Watson to have picked Rikki up so that he might see a digger,’ Mr Price said.

‘There was no obstacle to prevent Rikki from seeing it.

‘This cannot be, therefore we submit, why the hands of Mr Watson came to be in contact with Rikki’s clothing on that Monday.

‘So it cannot be how his DNA was found on fibres taken from the dead child’s clothes.

‘So we ask you again…how did the DNA get there?’

Later, the jury heard from PC Malcolm Graham, who was the first officer to find Rikki’s body on the morning he had been reported missing.  

Giving evidence in a grey suit and light blue shirt, he said he continued to serve with the Cambridge Constabulary as a police officer until 2019.

He was part of the team of officers who searched for missing Rikki, combing through the wood where his body was eventually found as part of that effort.

‘I recall there were approximately 10 officers on the team and searching.

‘We lined out…we were about 10 yards apart.

‘We started to walk from east to west.’

The now retired officer confirmed that the photos shared of Rikki’s body in court accurately showed how he found the six-year-old’s body that day – ‘naked, lying on its back and spread eagled’.

The body was tkane to the mortuary and the officer went with Rikki’s father, Trevor Harvey, to formally identify the body the next day, the court heard.

He said he spotted Rikki’s legs around five minutes after the search began.

‘It was very quick.

‘I remember going close enough to see the whole body and then calling my sergeant over.’

Mr Graham told jurors how the police employed ‘dragon lamps’, high intensity searchlights, to light up the wood as they searched.

Watson, of no fixed address, denies murder.

The trial continues.