Witness ‘saw six-year-old Rikki Neave with his killer on the day he was murdered,’ court hears
Witness ‘saw six-year-old Rikki Neave with his killer, 13, who waved at her as they walked together on the day he was murdered 27 years ago,’ court hears
Rikki Neave’s body was found in woodland near his Peterborough home in 1994James Watson, who was 13 at the time, is standing trial at the Old Bailey Prosecutors claim Watson left Rikki’s body naked and in a star-shaped poseSylvia Clary recalled seeing Rikki with Watson on the day the boy was murdered
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A pensioner has described seeing six-year-old Rikki Neave with his alleged killer on the day he was murdered 27 years ago.
School cleaner Sylvia Clary said she saw Rikki with then 13-year-old James Watson before he was strangled near his Peterborough home on November 28, 1994.
The boy’s naked body was found posed in a star shape in woods off the Welland Estate the following day, the Old Bailey has heard.
Rikki’s mother Ruth Neave, who had reported him missing, was originally accused of his murder but acquitted after a trial.
Following a cold case review in 2015, Watson’s DNA was found on Rikki’s clothes, which had been dumped in a nearby wheelie bin, jurors have heard, and he now stands trial accused of murder.
On Monday, Ms Clary, now 90 and retired, was called to give evidence at Watson’s murder trial by video link from Nottingham.
She told jurors she still remembers the sighting outside her house on the estate between 8.30-8.45am which she told police about at the time.
James Watson, 40, is on trial for the murder of six-year-old Rikki Neave at the Old Bailey in London. He denies killing the youngster and dumping his body in woods near the victim’s home in Peterborough in November 1994
Rikki was murdered near his home in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire on December 5, 1994 and his body was dumped in some nearby woods, circled
She was looking out of her kitchen window when she saw Rikki in his school uniform and anorak, she said.
John Price QC, prosecuting, asked: ‘When you saw him, was he alone or was he with someone else?’
Ms Clary replied: ‘With someone else.’
Mr Price said: ‘Did you know that other person?’
Ms Clary responded: ‘Yes.’
The prosecutor went on: ‘Who was the person that he was with?’
The witness replied: ‘Jamie Watson.’
Asked how she knew him, Ms Clary said: ‘He lived at the back of our house and his father had put my patio in.’
She told jurors Watson, who was not in school uniform, had looked at her and waved.
Cross-examining, Jennifer Dempster QC, for Watson, said: ‘If I suggested to you that was not James you saw with Rikki, what would you say?’
Ms Clary replied: ‘No, it was.’
The jacket Rikki was wearing when he was killed was recovered from a wheelie bin close to where his body was found
The muddy trousers recovered from the scene after being dumped into a wheelie bin a short distance from Rikki’s body
Jurors were previously told the killer remained with the victim’s body for an hour and made no attempt to conceal it.
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.’
Prosecutors claim Watson, pictured, saw an episode of Crimewatch featuring the investigation which revealed the existence of ‘scientific evidence’
But a year later, Watson gave another account of his meeting with Rikki in which he ‘introduced a wealth of new detail’, prosecutors said.
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 April 19, 2016 was Mr Watson able to put forward an answer to that crucial question before it had even been asked of him?’
Rikki’s mother Ruth Neave, pictured right with her husband Gary Rogers was initially charged with her son’s murder but was later acquitted
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?’
Prosecutors claim Watson’s assertion that he had lifted up Rikki to peer over a fence was incorrect as there was no fence at the location in November 1994
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.’
The court was told 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.
Watson, now 40, of no fixed address, denies murder.
The trial continues.
