Jury retire in Rikki Neave murder trial

The jury trying the alleged killer of schoolboy Rikki Neave retired to consider its verdict today (weds) after a two-and-a-half-month trial.

Six-year-old Rikki was found in woodland in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, stripped naked and left in a ‘star pose’ on 29 November 1994.

James Watson, who was 13 at the time but is now 40, denies Rikki’s murder.

He 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.

Rikki’s mother Ruth Neave was cleared of murdering Rikki by a jury at Northampton Crown Court in 1996, but she admitted child cruelty and was jailed for seven years.

The jury of of four men and eight women was sent out to begin their deliberations today.

Mrs Justice McGowan, summing up the case, had told them: ‘The prosecution finds there was a sexual element to the killing.

‘The defence put forward an alternative motive, namely an interest in the occult.

‘The defence say she [Ruth Neave] is or could be the killer.’

Watson, of no fixed address, denies murdering Rikki between 28 and 29 November 1994.
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