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RIKKI NEAVE: Troubled childhood of the woman dubbed 'Britain's most evil mother'
AFTER pleading guilty to a catalogue of cruelty against her murdered son Rikki, Ruth Neave became one of the most reviled women in Britain. In the second of a series of features to mark the 10th anniversary of Rikki's death, chief reporter Neil Franklin profiles Ruth and her troubled background and talks to the detectives who investigated the murder.
AFTER pleading guilty to a catalogue of cruelty against her murdered son Rikki, Ruth Neave became one of the most reviled women in Britain. In the second of a series of features to mark the 10th anniversary of Rikki's death, chief reporter Neil Franklin profiles Ruth and her troubled background and talks to the detectives who investigated the murder.IT looked like any other terraced house in a street where most residents had seen more than their share of hard times. But over Rikki Neave's home there hung a shadow.
It was a dark presence of horror, fear and despair that first manifested itself in the terrible childhood of his mother Ruth, and went on to cast a malevolent spell over the little boy.
Within hours of her arrival in Redmile Walk, Welland, Peterborough, at least one neighbour was to discover that Ruth was not a woman to chat casually about the domestic highs and lows of being a young mother with three children to bring up.
Neighbour Amanda Eaton got a shock when she made the friendly gesture of inviting her new next door neighbour in for a cup of tea.
Neave did not even know this woman, yet within minutes she was bragging that she was a high priestess of the occult who dabbled in black magic and stuck pins in dolls.
Later it was to emerge that Neave also had a fascination with the minds of murderers and had written a catalogue of manuscripts on the subject.
If she was obsessed by death and the darker side of life, it was probably as a result of her own turbulent early years.
She was put into care at the age of two-and-a-half because her parents could not cope with bringing her up.
Her father was physically handicapped, her mother anorexic and her brother was born blind.
Her parents committed suicide in a joint pact when she was 24.
As early as 1980, Neave was diagnosed a psychopath and she underwent therapy. But her problems had started much earlier.
She was a seriously disturbed child who suffered from wild temper tantrums and fits of screaming.
When her parents, Alex and Anne Greig, made an earlier unsuccessful joint suicide bid, she and her brother Mark were allowed back into the family home in Lewisham, south London.
During the next two years, she was in and out of care, but finally, at the age of four, she was taken into long-term care at her mother's request and lived with foster parents in Cambridgeshire.
At the age of 15, she was sent to the secure unit at Salter's Assessment Centre, in Glinton, near Peterborough, but her behaviour was aggressive and abusive. On one occasion, staff had to wrestle a pair of scissors away from her and on another she slashed her thigh and chased a boy with a carving knife.
Neave met Rikki's father, Trevor Harvey, in 1984, and they lived in March for seven years before splitting up. She married petty criminal and drug abuser Dean Neave in 1991 and moved to the Welland.
Dean Neave would eventually die in a car crash in October 1999. The 36-year-old was high on drugs when his car plunged into a water-filled dyke.
Neave's income in Peterborough was about 90 a week in benefits and if she didn't have enough money, she would steal clothes.
She would also spend about 40 a week on amphetamines and send little Rikki around Welland at dead of night to pick up drugs from local dealers.
If Rikki and his mother's relationship was tortuous in life, her reaction to his violent and tragic death seemed equally abnormal to a veteran detective well used to dealing with the bereaved.
Detective Chief Inspector George Collings (47), who was the deputy senior investigating officer on the case, vividly recalls: "I have notified people of bereavements before, but never in those circumstances, where a young child has been found naked and it looks like he's been murdered.
"I can remember it all, even what I was wearing. It's one of those events that sticks in your mind.
"I told her (Neave) the basic details that the body of a young boy had been found. Before I could tell her anything else she just ran out of the house. She just screamed and ran to a neighbour's house.
"I had some compassion for the woman. I was aware I had to be very careful in what I told her. She wasn't a suspect, as such, but under circumstances like that, anyone who saw the person alive last has to be treated with a degree of caution.
"I was shocked by the news a six-year-old child had been murdered. I wanted to make sure Mrs Neave knew it was Rikki but I could not say it was, because there had been no formal identification. It was very difficult."
It was allegations of cruelty, which first led police hunting Rikki's killer to arrest his mother.
There were also "inconsistencies" in her story of what happened on the night before her son was found dead and a "pattern of alleged cruelty to Rikki and his siblings".
Witnesses said they had seen Neave kicking and throwing Rikki, as well as threatening to kill him.
Neave was first arrested at an address in Chatteris, near March, on January 19, 1995, and appeared before Peterborough magistrates 11 days later accused of cruelty towards Rikki and another child.
DCI Collings, who is now part of Cambridgeshire police's Major Investigation Team, said: "There was no major breakthrough in the early stages, but we did start to receive reports from members of the public that led us to get concerned about the care of all the children in the Neave family."
Evidence was also gathered from people Neave had spoken to while at a bail hostel and she was charged with the murder of her son on May 25.
Rikki was not killed in the scrubland where he was found, close to Eye Road, just 500 yards from his home. DCI Collings said the fact the scene of the killing was never discovered made the investigation very difficult.
He said: "We were keeping a very open mind. There were a number of potential lines of inquiry. We were interviewing a number of young children who had reported sightings of Rikki. We didn't have a sex offenders' register then, so we couldn't say if there was someone who would be a risk to children in the area.''
Detective Superintendent Keith Chamberlain, who led the inquiry, said Neave reacted aggressively towards officers when she was first arrested and was interviewed several times.
Det Supt Chamberlain said: "She was the same throughout. She did admit some cruelty, but she denied killing him all the way through.
''She admitted that she wasn't a good mother, but said she didn't kill him."
'Ruth seemed in a trance'
RIKKI Neave was still missing when former Evening Telegraph reporter Cetti Munago and photographer Paul Franks called at his home.
Small, slightly built and deathly pale, Ruth Neave invited them inside for what was to be a strange interview.
Neave, dressed in dark clothing, led them into a dingy living room. Curtains were drawn, blocking out what little light there was on that dismal day.
A picture of the six-year-old dressed in his smart school uniform hung on the wall.
Despite being invited in by Neave, Cetti was struck by her attitude. She remembers: "Ruth seemed oblivious to the fact that we were there. She seemed to be in a trance. At first, she didn't talk to us and she picked up the post from her door mat as if we weren't there. We asked if we could sit down and then she sat down and started opening her post."
Cetti asked to borrow the picture of Rikki as it might bring forward someone who had seen him. His mother agreed.
Cetti added: "It was just very strange. We let ourselves out and she just stayed on the sofa."
Tomorrow: The murder trial that gripped the city
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