For the 1994 murder of 6-year-old Rikki Neave, a child killer was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 15 years.
In order to fulfill a “morbid fantasy” he had mentioned to his mother three days prior, James Watson, then 13, lured 12-year-old Rikki to some woods close to his Peterborough home and strangled him.
He deliberately “exhibited” himself close to a young child’s den in the woods after stripping Rikki and posing his naked body in a star shape for sex.
The age of the defendant when the crime was committed heavily influenced the sentencing.
Rikki was a child who was far too willing to engage and trust strangers, according to the judge, Mrs. Justice McGowan.
He was never given the chance to experience happiness or live a satisfying and regular life. His murder prevented him from having that chance.
As he was being condemned, Watson exhibited no emotion.
The judge ruled that he would never be released until he had served the mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison, less the two years and four months he had already served on remand, and the Parole Board had determined that he no longer posed a risk to the public.
Before Watson’s DNA was found on the victim’s clothes after the case was reexamined two decades later, Rikki’s murder was one of the most well-known cold cases in police records.
Mother-of-four Ruth Neave was found not guilty of her son’s murder in 1996, but she was sentenced to seven years in prison after admitting to child cruelty. Many years after her release, she is reportedly considering appealing this conviction.
She missed the sentencing hearing in court.
She made the following statement in a witness statement that was read on her behalf: “Like stones falling in a pond, it (the murder) has rippled out far and wide.”
“Rikki’s death left a gaping hole in both our lives and our hearts. I miss him so much that it feels as though my heart has been torn out.
The oldest sister of Rikki, Rebecca Maria Harvey, sobbed as she addressed the court.
Even though I was the oldest, she added, it wasn’t like that because dad would take care of me. Rikki’s loss was like losing a piece of myself.
“After all these years of living your life, you finally get your comeuppance, and Rikki Lee Harvey finally receives justice,” she continued, addressing Watson without using his name
A police officer discovered Rikki’s body in the woods, said Mrs. Justice McGowan.
“After he passed away, he was stripped naked, and his body was spread out on the ground.”
His school uniform shirt was missing a button. He had been undressed there, as evidenced by the matching button that was discovered on a leaf close to the body.
Rikki had just turned six.
She continued by claiming that Rikki had a sad childhood and occasionally experienced “cruel behavior.”
She went on to say that Watson also had a challenging early life.
I’m not certain if the two boys had ever met before the time right before the murder.
“I am certain that James Watson was considering, planning, and even discussing the placement of a naked body of a strangled child in those woods throughout the time leading up to the murder.
“I am also certain that James Watson had a sexual interest in young boys at the time.”
A young boy’s account of a sexual assault to his mother in 1993 serves as a compelling example of this.
“I am equally certain that the evidence of James Watson’s teenage girlfriend demonstrates a warped interest in strangulation in sexual activity,” the author said.
The judge stated that although there was no overt sexual behavior associated with Rikki, the stripping and posing of the body indicated a sexual interest.
The odd stripping was surely interpreted as a sexual interest’s manifestation.
She discussed how Watson revised his story over time in response to fresh DNA evidence.
After an 11-week trial, a jury took 36 hours and 31 minutes to reach a unanimous decision and found Watson, now 41, guilty of murder.
Back in 1994, there was speculation that Rikki might have perished in a case resembling that of the unfortunate James Bulger, who was kidnapped, tortured, and killed at the age of 2 by 10-year-old boys in Kirkby, Merseyside, in 1993.
However, Rikki’s mother, Ms. Neave, later emerged as the prime suspect and was accused of her son’s slaying in 1996.
The prosecution’s case rested on the testimony of a police officer who searched the woods where Rikki was eventually discovered.
Prosecutors claimed the officer originally missed the body because it was dark, and at the time he found nothing.
In the time it took to find the body, it was alleged that important evidence had been removed.
If the jury believed his statement, the judge would have ordered Ms. Neave to be found not guilty since she would not have had time to relocate the body after that because the police were already with her.
She eventually admitted to torturing her son after being found not guilty of murder during the trial.
Ms. Neave testified earlier in Watson’s trial that she had been “bullied into” admitting guilt to the accusation of abuse and “did not know” what she was confessing to.
Watson, a youngster from a troubled household, allegedly killed Rikki in the woods before noon on November 29.
After eating a bowl of Weetabix earlier that morning, Rikki was traveling alone to his school, Welland Primary School.
According to testimony given in court, Watson, who was a resident of Woodgate’s Children’s Home at the time of the murder, was most likely taking the day off from Peterborough’s Walton School.
The Walton estate was well-known to Watson, the court was informed, as he had visited it when he was a young child and his father still resided there.
He and Watson are thought to have met that day, as witnesses testified to the jury that they observed the two heading into the woods where Rikki would eventually be killed. Later that afternoon, Watson went back to Woodgates Children’s Home.
“We say the material has been presented before you to enable you to ultimately establish who it was that did it,” John Price QC told the jury during his Old Bailey trial.
“We want that you rule by your verdict that James Watson killed Rikki Neave.”
Even if the case was “circumstantial,” the prosecutor insisted that “there was no “only” about it,” adding that “circumstances do not lie.”
Mr. Price hypothesized that Rikki’s final breakfast of Weetabix on November 28 around noon, right after he was spotted with Watson, would indicate the time of his passing.
The prosecutor said that mud on Rikki’s Clarks shoes showed that he entered the woods and did not come out again.
Later that day, Mr. Price provided the jury with a thorough investigation of the purported “ghost sightings” of Rikki, claiming that those witnesses were “mistaken.”
Despite being questioned by police during the initial stages of the murder investigation, Watson ‘did not mention’ to them that he had actually ‘picked up’ Rikki the day before he died.
Prosecutors first believed there was not enough evidence to bring charges when the cold case investigation was started, but they changed their minds when Ms. Neave and Rikki’s sisters requested a victims’ right to review.
Rikki’s final supper of Weetabix, which placed his passing at midday, was an important piece of evidence.
That means Rikki was slain soon after being seen leaving the house with Watson to go play in the nearby woods.
Rikki also gave away his one-way hike into the woods by leaving his Clarks shoes filthy.
Police who interrogated Watson in 1993 following a report of a molestation of a five-year-old kid were aware of Watson’s sexual interest in younger boys.
In a dark recreation of Rikki’s death, an ex-girlfriend later claimed that he had strangled her during sex in the woods while also killing a bird and spreading its wings.
Despite Watson having “a sexual interest in little boys,” the judge ruled that there was no proof of any sexual behavior involving Rikki’s body.
In a 2016 police interview, Watson made an effort to justify why his DNA was found on Rikki’s clothing by saying he scooped him up to peer at diggers through a fencehole.
Watson, who has a long criminal record for convictions including stealing cars, fled to Portugal while on bail on suspicion of murder, but was extradited back to Britain.
Clare Forsdike, a senior crown prosecutor at the CPS, said: ‘The life sentence given to James Watson today brings to an end the horrific case of the murder of six-year-old Rikki Neave in 1994.
‘I am very proud of the hard work done by the Crown Prosecution Service and Cambridgeshire Police to catch and prosecute James Watson, who has never accepted responsibility for what he did.
‘Rikki’s family continue to live with his tragic loss and all our thoughts remain with them.’
The horrific murder sparked national outrage at the time, less than two years after the abduction, torture and brutal killing of two-year-old James Bulger in Merseyside.
Watson’s web of lies and constantly changing alibis which helped him evade justice for 28 years mean much about the murder still remains unclear – including whether he knew Rikki prior to the killing.
However jury members heard how Watson’s DNA was found on adhesive tapings on Rikki’s clothes, and that Watson’s posing of the six-year-old’s naked body was an act carried out for his own sexual gratification.
The decision also came 26 years after Rikki’s mother Ruth Neave was cleared of her son’s murder by a jury at Northampton Crown Court following a high-profile 16-day trial
She later admitted child cruelty in relation to a number of incidents throughout Rikki’s short life, including grabbing Rikki around the throat, pushing him against a wall and lifting him up.
Ms Neave was jailed for seven years in October 1996. After Watson’s guilty verdict, she described her son’s murderer as a ‘monster’.
In a statement following the verdict, Ms Neave said: ‘The only thing now is to close this chapter in my life and open a new one.
‘I wonder what Rikki would be like today, married, children? Who knows?
‘But this monster has taken that all from me and my daughters.’
She thanked “those that believed in me and Rikki” and applauded the jury for reaching the “correct conclusion.”
In October 1996, Ms. Neave received a seven-year sentence. After the verdict, she called the killer of her son a “monster.”
The statement read: “We would like to sincerely thank everyone involved who have worked tirelessly, patiently, and with commitment to ensure the conviction of James Watson for the murder of our Rikki.” It was issued on behalf of Rikki’s late father, Trevor, sister Rebecca, and extended paternal family.
‘This is a day we feared would never come, 27 years is a long time to grieve without closure. Taking its toll on the whole family then and now.
‘Sadly, Rikki’s dad Trevor passed away not knowing what happened to his ‘Best Boy in the World’, now they can finally both be at peace together.’
Clare Forsdike, a senior crown prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service, said the verdict had finally brought ‘just for Rikki’, almost three decades after his death.
‘The conviction of James Watson for killing Rikki Neave concludes an appalling unsolved crime almost 30 years after it happened. It brings justice for Rikki.
‘It has been like a jigsaw puzzle with each piece of evidence not enough by itself but when put together creating a clear and compelling picture of why James Watson had to be the killer.
‘Ultimately a combination of evidence from DNA, post mortem, soil samples, eyewitness testimony, and his changing accounts proved overwhelming.
‘Only James Watson knows why he did it. He remained silent for two decades and then put Rikki’s family through the agony of a trial. I hope the verdict gives some consolation to all those who love and miss Rikki Neave.’
Watson’s barrister Jenni Dempster insisted that the murder was ‘not planned and not sexually motivated.’
Speaking outside court, former assistant chief constable Paul Fullwood, who led the cold case inquiry, said: ‘It has taken a significant period of time to get to this point but we made a promise that we would find the person responsible for Rikki’s death and it is a promise that we have kept.
‘Rikki was a six-year-old little boy. He was a kind and cheeky chap who was cruelly taken under the most horrendous of circumstances.
‘His memory lives on through his family who have to deal with his loss for the rest of their lives. But now they finally know. They know what happened. We really really hope this gives them some peace.
‘For years James Watson had hidden away knowing he was responsible for Rikki’s murder and thinking he had gotten away with it.
‘But this is no longer the case. He will spend years behind bars and the truth has finally come out.’
Asked about the original investigation into Ruth Neave, Mr Fullwood said Cambridgeshire Constabulary led a ‘tunnel vision investigation’.
‘Absolutely they charged the wrong person.’
He added that the original investigation occurred shortly after the Jamie Bulger murder and that the constabulary were under a lot of pressure. Mr Fullwood has personally apologised to Ms Neave.
Asked if he believed Watson had ever shown any remorse, he said: ‘I have seen someone who was a fantasist, a compulsive liar and a sexual predator.
‘I have not seen any evidence of James Watson showing any remorse for the dreadful, dreadful murder of Rikki Neave.’
The two were seen walking from the city’s Welland Estate, he told the jury.
He remarked, “It was a lovely late autumn day and they were going to the woods, an area both of them knew well and had been many times previously, at least during daylight.”
“Sometime after the two boys entered the wood, James Watson ambushed Rikki Neave from behind and without provocation. He strangled him to death using a ligature, most likely the collar of the jacket Rikki was wearing or something that had been affixed to the collar.
The jacket was still zipped up when Rikki passed away since the zip left a visible mark on his neck. Rikki was wearing it.
The child’s body was then stripped by James Watson. He had a persistent sexual interest in young children that he had already indulged in the year before. This interest was furthered by a horrible fantasy about the death of a child that was known to have been on his mind just three days earlier.
Mr. Price claimed that as Watson “performed whatever he was doing,” one of Rikki’s blouse buttons slipped off and was left on a nearby leaf.
The jury was informed that Watson afterwards staged Rikki’s body “just like he would with a dead bird” he had murdered months earlier.
The court was informed that he then stole Rikki’s clothes and threw them in the trash.
After that, according to Mr. Price, Watson became “fascinated by the ramifications of his own behavior” and copied newspaper accounts of Rikki’s passing.
The court was informed that he only mentioned being with Rikki that day to police when they called, not when he spoke to teachers.
Watson gained “significant forensic experience” during the more than 20 years that his account was not contested or questioned, according to Mr. Price.
Watson had a defense ready before the police informed him of the DNA connection to Rikki’s clothing: “I picked him up to peek through a hole in a fence,” Mr. Price advised.
According to the prosecution, “He would tell them how, all these years later, the thought of the young child peeping through the fence hole still made him grin when he came to mind.”
Watson made a “very major error,” according to Mr. Price, since he failed to realize that it would be feasible to convincingly demonstrate that the high fence was absent on the day Rikki was killed all these years later.
Watson was handled as a “vulnerable youngster” by social services starting in March 1993 despite coming from a dysfunctional Peterborough family, the court had heard.
He was questioned that year on a report that he had sexually molested a five-year-old youngster.
Although years later he acknowledged it was “simply two boys playing with each other’s penises,” Watson initially denied it when he was 12 years old, and no further action was taken.
James Watson junior, with whom he shared a home on the Welland Estate, allegedly assaulted Watson bodily in April 1994, according to a family member Watson told.
He was placed in foster care and lived with Molly Donald, to whom he quickly developed feelings of affection.
Watson was sent away once more, this time to Woodgate’s children’s home in March, around 20 miles from Peterborough, after she discovered him with a shotgun and thought she couldn’t handle it.
The jury was informed that Watson routinely skipped class and changed into casual attire.
Watson was listed as present on the register 18 times out of a possible 38 school days from his enrollment at Peterborough’s Walton School until the day of the murder.
He even told his mother he had heard a news story about it on the radio when, at the age of 13, he became fascinated with the notion of strangling a young child.
The prosecution claimed that three days later, on November 28, 1994, about noon, he killed six-year-old Rikki Neave, realizing his fantasy.
According to the prosecutor, John Price QC, he stripped him naked for his own sexual satisfaction and “exhibited” the posed body that was discovered in the woods close to a children’s den.
The jury was informed that Watson made numerous copies of newspaper articles after being “fascinated” with his own acts.
One of many lies he told was telling teachers that he knew Rikki as the brother of a buddy.
When the police were summoned on December 5, 1994, Watson was forced to confess to having met Rikki after “cursing” the fact that he had been observed with her by an old woman.
Watson’s story was laced with fabrications, yet they went unchecked for more than 20 years as Ruth, Rikki’s mother, was mistakenly sought after by the police.
Care providers saw his peculiar behavior, including masturbating while perusing a children’s clothing catalog, keeping a dead pheasant in his room, and even strangling a worker with a stocking.
He relocated to a different nursing facility and, despite being gay at a young age, began seeing a girl there who was 15 years old.
She reported Watson to the police in 2016 after he once killed and displayed a bird and threatened to strangle her if they had sex outside.