Rikki Neave’s mother denies trying to speak to him beyond the grave
The mother of murdered schoolboy Rikki Neave denied conducting a séance to try and contact her son.
Ruth Neave admitted she collected books about notorious murderers and that she was interested in Ouija boards at the time her son was killed in 1994.
Rikki’s body was found in woods in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, in November 1994, after the six-year-old was strangled, stripped naked and left in a ‘star pose’.
James Watson, who would have been 13 at the time, is now 40 and denies Rikki’s murder.
Watson was arrested after sophisticated technology found a ‘definitive match’ between his DNA profile and samples taken from Rikki’s clothing after a new investigation was opened into the case in 2015.
Ms Neave was questioned about 143 books seized by police from her home, which were all about either murders or the occult.
Jenni Dempster, QC, defending Watson, read out a series of book titles, the first of which: ‘Beyond Belief: The Moors Murderers: The Story of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.’
‘It was a good book actually,’ Ms Neave said.
‘It wasn’t occult, it wasn’t magic, it wasn’t black magic, just a book that everyone reads. From a bookshop.’
She was asked if the book, ‘Still Unsolved Great True Murder Cases’, was in her home.
‘Yes of course there was.
‘I was interested in all of them.
‘Doesn’t make it evil, doesn’t make me want to kill my own son either.’
Ms Dempster continued: ‘Murder Most Foul’, ‘True Detective’, ‘The New Murderers Who’s Who?’.
The barrister moved on to books seized from Ms Neave’s home about the occult and black magic.
‘Did you have a book called Divination of Prophecy?’
Ms Neave replied: ‘Yes, I did actually, not evil, bought in a bookshop.’
Ms Dempster asked: ‘Did you have a book called A Malady of Magicks?’
Ms Neave replied: ‘Yes I did. It is not illegal to buy a book from a bookshop is it?’
Ms Dempster then asked about a book, Magick in Theory and Practice, by Aleister Crowley (corr).
The barrister went on: ‘The book was originally written in 1929 wasn’t it?’
Ms Neave said: ‘I don’t know, haven’t read it.’
Ms Dempster pressed: ‘It’s not true that you’ve never read it is it?’
Ms Neave replied: ‘Yes it is true I never read it. I suggest to you you’re a liar.’
Ms Dempster continued: ‘That book amongst other things was about rituals and sacrifices wasn’t it?’
Ms Neave replied: ‘Yes it was.’
‘How do you know if you’ve never read it?’ the barrister asked.
Ms Neave answered: ‘Because I’ve seen the files.’
Ms Dempster said: ‘It’s a book that speaks about…the greater ritual of the pentagram. Diagrams in star shapes.’
‘So what?’ Ms Neave asked. ‘What has that got to do with anything?’
The mother was asked whether she believed in magic and the occult.
She said: ‘Not really, not now’.
In 1994, she said she believed in Tarot cards and ouija boards.
Ms Dempster asked about an incident at the Neave household, in which a friend, David Hamilton, recorded to police that he had opened the Aleister Crowley book sitting on Ms Neave’s coffee table.
‘Did you come into the living room at 209 and notice that the law of magic book which had been closed on the coffee table was open and did you have a conversation with David Hamilton about that?’
Ms Neave replied: ‘No I did not.’
Ms Dempster asked: ‘Did you say who’s been reading my book?’
Ms Neave said: ‘Bullsh**.’
Ms Dempster: ‘Did you say to David Hamilton when he said –‘
Ms Neave: ‘Bullsh**.’
‘Don’t mess about,’ Ms Dempster continued.
‘Bullsh**,’ Ms Neave repeated.
Asked to keep control over her language, when Ms Dempster asked if she had, in 1993, asked Mr Hamilton to not ‘mess about with things you don’t understand’, Ms Neave replied: ‘Crap. No I didn’t.’
Ms Dempster asked: ‘How long had you had an interest in murders mysteries and the occult?’
Ms Neave replied: ‘I have always been interested in murders. Always.’
She denied ever having had a serious interest in the occult.
PC Andrea Brooks recorded in a statement that Ms Neave told her, on 21 January 1995, that she had taken part in a ‘séance to try and contact Rikki’.
Ms Neave laughed over the video link.
‘No,’ she said.
Ms Dempster asked: ‘Had you in January of 1995 taken part in seances?’
‘No I did not.
‘If PC Brooks is Andrea Warren in real life, it is wrong.’
‘She is a liar.’
Ms Neave stood trial at Northampton Crown Court for his murder in 1996 and was cleared by the jury.
She later admitted abusing her children and was jailed for seven years.
Watson, of no fixed address, denies murdering Rikki between 28 and 29 November 1994.
Jurors listened to a transcript of a recorded conversation Ms Neave had with police about two local girls, called Donna and Kelly, joking about reporting Rikki missing.
The schoolboy and his older sister Rebecca had been reported missing before, the court heard.
In the transcript Ms Neave said: ‘The most strange thing of all was that the week before Donna and Kelly asked, “Did you know where they were every time you reported them missing?”
‘They said, “They were around ours, we thought it was a laugh.”
‘And then I remember them saying, “Why don’t we report them missing that would be a laugh wouldn’t it?”
‘I said, “I’m not doing anything like that…you sick bastards.”
‘Something didn’t feel right with them saying let’s report him missing and they think that is a joke.
‘I was worried what had they done to him.
‘Kelly and Donna used to pick him up a lot.’
Ms Dempster asked: ‘Any suggestion that it was your idea to report, to pretend Rikki was missing on the 28th you say is not’.
Ms Neave replied: ‘I don’t think so.
‘I never said no such thing at all.
‘Donna and Kelly are big fat liars and I’m not putting up with it anymore.’
The barrister went on to ask: ‘That conversation between you, Donna and Kelly was there any mention by anyone or where Rikki was to be hidden?’
‘No.’
She continued: ‘Was there any mention of when, what time, Rikki would be reported missing had that plan gone ahead?’
‘No.’
‘Was your call to police at six o’clock anything to do with this conversation?’
‘No.’
‘Did you talk to anyone else about this conversation?’
Ms Neave responded: ‘I probably told a lot of people about it because it wasn’t right.
‘This is a ridiculous statement to make.
‘Two children…making statements like that.
‘It is ridiculous.’
Ms Dempster asked: ‘You told them [police] later on, but why didn’t you tell them on the 28th or 29th by the way this weekend there was a conversation?’
‘Because I was too busy worrying about where he was,’ Ms Neave replied.
When Rikki’s clothes, found in a wheelie bin near his body, were returned to his mother she threw them away, jurors heard.
‘I put his clothes in a wheelie bin when I got out of prison [in 2002],’ she said.
Ms Dempster told her: ‘You knew perfectly well the importance of forensic evidence, you studied the subject for years.’
‘No, no, no, no,’ Ms Neave repeated.
The barrister persisted: ‘You knew that then as now the suggestion was that his jacket had been the murder weapon.’
‘I did not know that was the murder weapon,’ Ms Neave responded.
‘That is nonsense Ms Neave,’ Ms Dempster accused.
She went on to say that Ms Neave ‘destroyed’ the murder weapon along with any chance to reanlyse Rikki’s clothes with ‘modern techniques’.
After the heated exchange, Ms Dempster posed a series of questions which Ms Neave refused to answer.
‘Did you murder Rikki?
‘Did you murder your son?
‘Are you really not going to answer my question?
‘Did you kill him accidentally?
‘Did you move his body in a buggy?
‘Did you have anything to do with the posing of Rikki’s body in that star shape?
‘Did you take his body to one of his favourite places to play?’
After every single one of these questions Ms Neave remained silent, staring at the camera.
‘Will you not answer those questions Ms Neave?’ Ms Dempster asked finally.
The witness responded: ‘I treat them with the contempt it deserves.’
Ms Neave has finished giving evidence.
Ms Dempster asked the witness about a series of comments she allegedly made about Rikki’s murder.
The barrister referenced a statement made by ‘friend of a friend’ Debbie Graham in which she recorded Ms Neave saying to her: ‘If they find the buggy they’ll find the murderer.’
Hearing that today, Ms Neave said: ‘No I didn’t say anything like that to Debbie Graham.
‘I don’t know where this is going but I hardly spoke to Debbie Graham.
‘She’s coming out with a load of lies.’
Ms Dempster went on to ask about a comment of hers recorded by Dr Nalini Modha who, when she explained to Ms Neave in the wake of Rikki’s death what ‘compression of the windpipe’ was, said the mother responded: ‘It could have been an accident then.’
Upon hearing this, Ms Neave responded: ‘I’m afraid that is a load of rubbish.
‘Where you are getting your information from it’s total crap.
‘Is it me on trial here everybody?
‘Or is your client on trial?
‘I beg to differ.’
In January 1995 Ms Neave was charged with child cruelty offences and by 16 February had secured bail.
It was alleged that Ms Neave, in a conversation with a member of bail hostel staff, said: ‘The killer must have known where the police were at this time so they knew where to put the body.’
Asked if she said that, Ms Neave said: ‘Yes I did actually and I’ll be honest with you that is the way I still feel today.
‘Because the killers or killer must have known where police were to not find Rikki’s body.
‘I don’t know when he died the fact is he never got found until the following day so how incompetent are the police?’
To that same bail hostel staff member, during a train journey from Liverpool to London, it was alleged that Ms Neave spoke to her about children, saying: ‘We have given life to them and we can take their life away.’
Ms Neave said today: ‘I don’t think so. No, I didn’t.
‘Everything that woman says is a lie.’
Ms Dempster made clear that the statement recorded Ms Neave following up with ‘not literally I mean’, but Ms Neave denied that as well.
‘Did you then become much quieter on the train for the rest of the journey?’ Ms Dempster asked.
‘No. Why would I be more quiet on the train?’
Ms Dempster responded: ‘Because did you realise what you had said Ms Neave?’
The barrister went on to ask about the witness’ novel entitled ‘The Perfect Crime’.
‘It is a short story,’ Ms Neave said.
‘He [the main character] was the murderer and gets away scot free.’
Reciting the opening of the short story, Ms Dempster read: ‘Funny really because out of all the crime books and magazines there is not one that mentions the perfect crime.
‘So what I’m aiming to do is just that.
‘Commit the perfect crime down to the last detail in which a toothcomb could be used and there are none in the light whatsoever.
‘You say hold on, there is no such thing.
‘But I say ah but there is dear people.
‘Shall we begin?’
Referencing another ‘manuscript’ of Ms Neave’s, Ms Dempster recited another line: ‘Why kill someone you don’t know, I would have thought you would only kill someone you know and who you hate and who have hurt you in some way.’
‘Did you say that?’ she asked.
‘I probably did,’ Ms Neave said, ‘It is a fictitious story.’
Ms Dempster then went on to ask about an interaction Ms Neave had with fellow bail hostel resident Leah Guest.
The barrister alleged that Ms Neave had ‘convinced’ Ms Guest that Dean Neave was responsible for Rikki’s murder.
‘No I told her he was on the estate that night,’ Ms Neave said.
‘Chris Emerson [a neighbour] told me that Dean Neave was on our estate that night.’
The court heard that Ms Neave bribed Ms Guest five pounds to report Dean’s presence on the Welland Estate on 28 November 1994 to Rikki’s murder investigation team.
‘What on earth was the problem with you ringing the murder investigation team?’ Ms Dempster asked.
‘Because they did not believe a word I was saying,’ Ms Neave responded.
‘I was convicted before I even went on trial.
‘Just like the jury now.
‘You are not getting away with it.’
Ms Dempster said Ms Neave spoke with another bail hostel resident calling Dean Neave a ‘professional killer’ who would ‘often come home with knives and baseball bats covered in blood’.
Ms Neave insisted that these ‘were not bizarre allegations’ when accused of making them so.
The trial continues tomorrow afternoon.
