i fell in love with somebody, made em a promise. this is all down to ruth finding somebody she could trust enough to look at it with an open mind, no preconceptions. and i didn t look at it to say, well, i m going to prove who murdered your son. i said i would hope to find truth and justice, and that s what we done. we got to this point today because i worked on evidence that s 28 years old now. the evidence was always there. it s just the way the police tried to bury it, twist it, and if you imagine it like a jigsaw puzzle, they were trying to force pieces of a jigsaw puzzle into places they shouldn t be. in 2014, 20 years after rikki s death, ruth and gary persuaded the police to reopen the case. i never set out to solve a murder.
they need to come forward. and i know full well that they will find who done it. with you for the next hour, this is crimewatch. - in 2015, the bbc s crimewatch programme featured rikki s murder. advancements in forensic technology meant police were able to digitally recreate the crime scene and take another look at the original evidence. a year after the case was reopened, cambridgeshire police identified a suspect, james watson. he would have been 13 at the time of rikki s murder. if i was by myself and shut my eyes, or when i put my head on my pillow at night time, i can t picture.i can t report it. watson was interviewed
took a life of a little boy that was a super duper little chunk of monks. and if there s any prick of conscience of anybody that knows anything, they need to come forward. and i know full well that they will find who done it. with you for the next hour, this is crimewatch. in 2015, the bbc s crimewatch programme featured rikki s murder. advancements in forensic technology meant police were able to digitally recreate the crime scene and take another look at the original evidence. a year after the case was reopened, cambridgeshire police identified a suspect, james watson. he would have been 13 at the time of rikki s murder.
they deserve and the answers they ve longed for. our thoughts are very much with them at this time. we hope it s the end of it. for the city and certainly for the people that - live on welland. it s got to be a shadow lifted off them because they don tl want people telling them all the time that - it s an estate where l a child was murdered. i think there should have been more multi agencyj approach to the family. i think that rikki might well still be alive today, but it si all down to social services. in those days, you really couldn t get other - agencies involved. now a man has been sentenced to life with a minimum of 15 years for the murder of six year old rikki neave almost 28 years ago. the schoolboy s naked body
on trial, the prosecution claiming she murdered her son as part of a black magic ritual. that kind of stuff tends to stick out in my mind and it s like a trigger. i get panic attacks, i get anxiety. it s awful. i can never get away from it, really, because there s such awful times. after four weeks of evidence, a verdict was reached. the foreman of the jury said they had decided unanimously ruth neave was not guilty of murder, she was not guilty of manslaughter. she broke down and wept. there were gasps of disbelief from the public gallery. how do you feel about that original police investigation? revulsion, to be honest. treat me like. they treated me like nothing on earth. horrible people, they were.