There was a “wholesale loss and destruction” of evidence in the 1994 murder of Rikki Neave, the Court of Appeal has heard as the man jailed for the killing challenged his conviction.
The murder of the six-year-old, who was strangled to death in woods near Peterborough, was among the most high-profile cold cases on police files until DNA was identified on the victim’s clothes following a re-examination of the case two decades later.
