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“Monster!”, This is how a mother called her son’s killer when he was only 6 years old.
For the heinous crime committed 30 years ago, the perpetrator was sentenced to 15 years.
The killer James Watson was 13 years old when he seduced Rikki Neave in the woods near his home in Peterborough in November 1994.
Watson, now 41, strangled Rikki from behind with a collar. He committed the murder to fulfill a fantasy, he told his mother.
Rikki’s mother, Ruth Neave, said Watson was a “monster”That had ruined her and the children’s lives.
In a statement issued after the sentencing, Ms. Neave wrote: “James Watson, you have no idea what you did. But of course it does. “You are a bad thing, unconscious.”
Watson “set in motion a chain of events that have ruined my life and the lives of my children. “she added.
Addressing her directly, she wrote: “How did it feel to kill a six-year-old boy?”
Speaking outside Old Bailey, former Assistant Chief of Police Paul Fullwood said he had apologized to Ruth Neave for “The time this investigation took” and can “to understand the injury and the pain she has gone through ”.
Mr Fullwood said he “had no regrets” with Watson, whom he described as a “fantasy” and a “liar”.
Regarding the initial investigation, Fullwood said “mistakes were made” and there were “lines of inquiry that were never followed.”
He added: “Quite clearly, the police at the time took a route that completely removed us from the real person responsible for the murder of Rikki Neave. ”
But he added a warning, noting that detectives in 1994 “did not have the benefits of forensic medicine today, they did not have the benefit of dedicated homicide teams.”
Police initially suspected Ruth Neave was responsible for the 1994 crime, but a jury acquitted him of murder charges two years later.
During his trial, Old Bailey heard that Watson had a sexual interest in the younger boys, which was known to police, who interviewed him over a allegation that he had molested a five-year-old in 1993.
After killing Rikki, Watson undressed him and posed his naked body in a star shape near a children’s forest nest.
The combination of “post-mortem DNA evidence, soil samples, eyewitness testimony and the change in Watson’s confession proved overwhelming.”
Watson’s attorney, Jennifer Dempster QC, said the main mitigation of her client’s sentence was his age at the time of the offense.
She said: “The defendant himself was a victim in the hands of others. “His upbringing and general childhood were influenced by the frustration of a variety of adults in his life who should not have done so.”
Ms Dempster added: “This was a young boy – a young boy – who really had no stability in his life.
There was no evidence “in any way that Watson sexually assaulted Rikkin,” she added.
Rebecca Maria Harvey, Rikki’s older sister, said his loss was “like losing my other half”.
Breaking up as she addressed the court, she said: “I still wake up every day thinking it was a nightmare. “I never had a brother to grow up with.”
“Rikki is not here and he has lost his life, but the effect it has had on me and my family is simply endless.”
Rochelle Orr, one of Rikki’s younger sisters, watched Watson several times as she gave her statement in court.
She said she wondered what Rikki would be like “if he were still here, but unfortunately I will never know because they took him from me”.
In her statement, Ruth Neave said: “Thanks to you James Watson, the kids grabbed me by the arms in the middle of the night because the police were so determined that I had killed Rikki and then I would kill my daughters.”
“We all lost each other and split up and our lives fell apart. I lost my children and my freedom and then I had to start all over again by being labeled and labeled as murderers, including Rikki’s brothers and sisters. My family was completely destroyed. “I have not seen my daughters for more than 26 years.”
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