The man accused of murdering schoolboy Rikki Neave told his sister he “messed up” after leaving Britain while under investigation, a court has heard.
James Watson, 40, is accused of strangling the six-year-old and posing his naked body in woods in Peterborough in November 1994.
The case remained unsolved for more than 20 years until Watson’s DNA was allegedly identified on Rikki’s discarded clothes.
In April 2016, Watson was arrested on suspicion of Rikki’s murder and, after his release, went to stay in Northamptonshire, the court was told.
Three months later, he left the country with another man in a motorhome and got in touch with his sister, Clair Perna, from France.
Giving evidence on Wednesday, Ms Perna, 43, said: “He contacted me to say he was in a lot of trouble and he had made a huge mistake.”
Watson said he had “messed up” by leaving the country, she told jurors.
She said: “Next time he rang, he said, ‘I need help. I’m in more trouble than I imagined and I need to get back to the UK.'”
Ms Perna told Watson he should try to contact a man she knew called Mario in Porto, Portugal.
She went on to describe liaising with British police while helping her brother apply for travel documents so he could return.
After being told he would need a passport interview, she said the pair opted for a “second option” of going to an embassy in Portugal.
Asked if she had told police, Ms Perna said: “I told them that he was going into the embassy.
“I believe they would have to identify who he was and that would be me with a phone call … and they would give him emergency travel documents to get home.”
Instead, Ms Perna said she got a call to say her brother had been arrested and confirmed he was being transported back to Britain.
Earlier, she said she and Watson grew up on the Welland Estate in Peterborough, staying with their father after their parents split up in September 1990.
She later went to live with her mother while Watson stayed in a care home in the nearby town of March, the court was told.
Ms Perna denied knowing the Neave family, who also lived on the estate, or visiting them with her half-brother Andrew Bailey.
Watson asked his mother about a child being found dead in a ditch a few days before Rikki went missing, it has been claimed.
Ms Perna denied hearing such a conversation, saying she would have remembered.
Watson, of no fixed address, denies Rikki’s murder. The trial, at the Old Bailey, continues.
