A police officer’s son accused of the 1994 murder of six-year-old Rikki Neave has denied he belatedly revealed he had picked up the schoolboy on the day of his disappearance in an attempt to tailor his account to fit the discovery of his DNA.
James Watson was 13 at the time it is alleged he killed Rikki in Peterborough on 28 November 1994, jurors have been told.
Watson, now 40, was charged with the boy’s murder after his DNA was allegedly found on the youngster’s discarded clothes.
Taking the stand at the Old Bailey in a short-sleeved shirt and dark tie, Watson accepted being seen with Rikki on 28 November 1994 when both children should have been at school.
The jury has been told Watson was interviewed as a witness in December 1994 but did not mention that he had picked up Rikki until he was interviewed by police again about 21 years later in 2015.
During his later interview, police appeared “taken aback” that he knew what DNA was, the defendant said.
He explained that he knew about it after being diagnosed as HIV positive in 2009.
Asked why he did not mention it before, Watson said: “I believe I picked him up today but I cannot remember.”
The defence barrister, Jennifer Dempster QC, said: “Was any part of your answer in 2015 ‘I may have picked him up’ an attempt to tailor your account to fit the DNA in the case as it emerged later?”
Watson denied it.
Watson told jurors that was the “first and only time” he had met Rikki and spent about four minutes with him.
According to his statement at the time, Watson had gone to the Welland Estate and was watching a digger when Rikki approached him at 12.30pm.
He denied going to the woods where Rikki was found strangled, stripped and posed in a star shape, but said it was a place he would go when he lived with his father on the Welland Estate.
Watson had been taken into care after his father, a serving officer with Cambridgeshire police, was arrested and subsequently jailed, the court was told.
He could not stay with his mother because of the person she was living with, the jury was told.
Watson said: “It was not my fault that I had to leave and go into care.”
He told jurors that he later became involved in animal rights when he and a boyfriend lived in Cambridge.
He added that he had always wanted to be a vet but did not have the qualifications, and was “really proud” that he passed an Open University course in animal care while in prison.
The jury has previously been told of Watson’s previous convictions for sexual assault, theft of a police uniform and unmarked police car, and the smashing up of a children’s home.
He denied having an unhealthy interest in dead birds and young children.
Dempster asked about a claim that he kept a “bespoke” clothing catalogue, featuring young children in underwear, in his room when he was in care.
Watson replied: “Absolutely not.”
On the claim that he kept the carcass of a pheasant in his room at the same children’s home, Watson said he was against “animal cruelty” but found the iridescence of pheasant feathers “fascinating”.
Earlier, in an opening address, Dempster told jurors there was “simply no evidence” that Watson was in the woods for about two hours, during which time it is alleged he killed, stripped and posed Rikki.
Watson, of no fixed address, denies murder and the trial continues.
