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RIKKI NEAVE: The sickening and senseless murder 'of the best boy in the world'
Rikki Neave was murdered 10 years ago this Sunday. The killing shocked Peterborough and news of his death spread across the globe. His mother Ruth was accused and cleared of his murder and his killer has never been found. Today, in the first of a week of features, chief reporter Neil Franklin takes another look at the child killing, which remains shrouded in mystery.
Rikki Neave was murdered 10 years ago this Sunday. The killing shocked Peterborough and news of his death spread across the globe.
His mother Ruth was accused and cleared of his murder and his killer has never been found.
Today, in the first of a week of features, chief reporter Neil Franklin takes another look at the child killing, which remains shrouded in mystery.
FOG clung like a damp, miserable, blanket to the grey streets of the Welland estate on the day they found Rikki Neave's body.
Drizzle fell like tears and drained away into the muddy earth beneath the bushes where he was found.
Hope had kept the searchers going. It still flickered like a candle flame in the dark sodden blackness of the long night-time hours after the alarm was first raised.
With first light the searchers were out again. Like shadows they moved through the choking mist, prodding in the litter-strewn corners of the estate. Combing the clinging grasslands for any trace of the missing child. There was always a chance that he was huddled somewhere – miserable, wet, and afraid to go home. Alive.
Public and police, they worked together, driven by the need to find this child. Some had refused to give up and go home to their own beds, and their own children.
Dedicated police officers worked on as the fog blended into a starless darkness. Dawn came, but did not bring with it much more light. The sounds of the search, which had been renewed with a determination that was increasingly laced with fear that he may not be found alive, echoed in the muffled canyons of the Welland passageways which had become known as rat runs for the gangs who roamed loose on the estate.Voices called out as the searchers kept reporting no signs of a breakthrough.
Every searcher longed to be the one to give a shout of triumph at having found him. To put their arms around him, and tell him everything would be all right.
It was not to be.
Hope died in a horrible, twisted way. A police officer found Rikki in a scrubby patch of woodland. Dumped in the undergrowth. He was naked, spreadeagled. The dank, clinging mist beaded his lifeless face and soaked his fair hair.
Despite the hours of searching, Rikki was just 500 yards from his home in Redmile Walk.
How had his body got to the undergrowth where it was found and what had happened in the final hours of his life?
These questions and many, many others remain unanswered today. A decade later, no one knows the whole story of what happened after Rikki was reported missing by his mother Ruth at 6pm on Monday, November 28, 1994.
It was noon the next day that he was found near Eye Road, adjacent to the Paston Parkway.
Police revealed he had not been sexually assaulted. A post mortem examination concluded he had died as a result of compression of the neck – strangulation.
It was a black day for the Welland community and a climate of fear descended upon the estate as police launched a murder inquiry.
The man leading the investigation, Detective Superintendent Keith Chamberlain, did not rule out the possibility that Rikki had been the victim of a Jamie Bulger-style abduction and murder, which had happened only 20 months earlier.
Det Supt Chamberlain described Rikki's murder as "sickening" and "senseless" and warned parents not to let their children out unattended.
Neave said she last saw her son alive when he left his home for Welland Primary School, in Scalford Drive, at 9.30am on the day he went missing. She described him as being "moody as hell".
He was seen at about 7pm that evening, playing with friends near shops and detectives appealed for these youngsters to come forward.
Mayor of Peterborough Bobbie Day, whose Dogsthorpe ward covered the area where Rikki lived, had joined the search for the child.
The next day she broke down after hearing Rikki's body had been found and she urged parents not to let their children out of their sight.
At Rikki's school, Welland primary, counsellors were drafted in to help pupils come to terms with the tragedy.
Posies of flowers, cards and cuddly toys were placed in the school grounds by tearful pupils.
As the police inquiry into the killing gathered pace, it emerged another boy had been attacked and stripped in an ordeal which mirrored the Rikki's murder just months before.
Valerie Bell said her 11-year-old son John had been tied up and stripped by a gang of five boys from the Welland.
Meanwhile, Rikki's father Trevor Harvey sobbed as he pleaded for help in the hunt for his son's killer. Mr Harvey joined his father, Maurice Harvey, at a press conference at Peterborough's Thorpe Wood police station.
Mr Harvey said he had no idea who could murder "the best boy in the world".
Detectives continued their search of the wooded area where Rikki's body was discovered for clues and made door-to-door inquiries on the estate. Officers also began hunting for five older children who Rikki had been seen with.
As the murder hunt moved into its third day, forensic experts and scenes of crime officers examined the youngster's home.
It emerged Rikki's clothes – including his grey school trousers, white shirt and jacket – had been found in a bin just 150 yards from where his body was dumped.
For the first time, details of Rikki's troubled background began to surface.
The six-year-old was on the social services At Risk register and was often seen wandering around the Welland area and frequently missed school.
A week after Rikki's death, his mother said she planned to leave the city in a bid to come to terms with her son's death.
By now, the BBC, ITN, Channel Four, Sky News and French TV had all descended on Peterborough to cover the story and people in Europe, America, Australia and New Zealand were also following developments.
About 400 calls were made to an incident room at Thorpe Wood police station in the first week of the inquiry.
In a bid to help police, The Evening Telegraph raised a 10,000 reward for information leading directly to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for Rikki's death.
The reward was put up jointly by the paper and two Peterborough businesses as police released details of 12 sightings of Rikki on the day he went missing.
The first major breakthrough in the police investigation came on January 19, 1995, when Rikki's mother was arrested at an address in Chatteris, near March.
She appeared before Peterborough magistrates 11 days later accused of cruelty towards Rikki and another child who could not be named for legal reasons.
There was uproar in the court as people in the public gallery shouted at Neave and then screaming women threw eggs at a van carrying her from court back to Holloway jail.
Rikki's funeral was eventually held on February 14. Family and close friends gathered amid high security at King's Lynn's Mintlynn Crematorium for the private service at noon, organised by Ruth Neave.
A wreath of flowers in the shape of the six-year-old's beloved bicycle accompanied the coffin. Rikki's mother, father and grandfather were all in attendance.
On May 25, 1995, Ruth Neave was remanded in custody charged with the murder of her son. A noisy mob of about 100 people gathered outside Peterborough Magistrates' Court to see her driven away in a police van.
She had been arrested at a north London address the previous day.
It was to be more than a year before Neave stood trial.
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