James Watson was given a minimum 15-year jail term for murdering Rikki Neave in Peterborough in 1994.
Trial judge Mrs Justice McGowan said the law meant Watson, who was 13 when Rikki was found strangled in woods near his home, had to be handed a minimum term relevant to his age at the time of the offence.Three judges – Lord Justice Holroyde, Mr Justice Morris and Judge Angela Morris – delivered a ruling today and denied the appeal,Rikki’s mother, Ruth Neave, was found not guilty of his murder following a trial in Northampton crown court in 1996.
Watson, who denied murder, was charged after a police cold case review produced a DNA match in 2015, after the technology had ‘sufficiently advanced’.James Watson was 13 years old when he murdered Rikki A policeman leaving flowers at Welland County Primary School in Peterborough, the school of murdered six-year-old Rikki Neave, in 1994
A barrister leading Watson’s legal team told the appeal hearing that a ‘wholesale loss and destruction of evidence’ meant a fair trial was not possible.
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