Rikki murder-accused ‘kept dead birds and tried to strangle girl during sex’

James Watson was aged 13 when it is claimed he strangled six-year-old Rikki and posed him naked in woods near his home in Peterborough in November 1994, the Old Bailey has heard.

The case remained unsolved for more than 20 years until Watson’s DNA was identified on Rikki’s clothes, that were dumped in a nearby bin, jurors have been told.

On Friday, a string of witnesses described Watson’s behaviour as a youth.

Allegations included that he indecently touched a boy of five, and repeatedly put his hands round the neck of a teenage girl during sex.

Watson’s former girlfriend told jurors how they met at a children’s home at the age of 14.

He would take a “survival kit”, including a knife, when they went into woods for sex four or five times, jurors heard.

The woman said: “When James got excited towards the end, at the end part, he would have his hands on my neck and leave marks on my throat, more than once.”

She said it had a “profound effect”, adding that he became “more forceful” as time went on.

She confirmed that she had thought he was “trying to strangle” her.

The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said Watson threw a stone at a little brown starling, killing it, on one occasion.

She went on: “It was only a little bird. He laid it out and spread its wings on its back and plucked feathers.”

Afterwards, she said he put the dead bird in his pocket.

Previously, Watson had lived at another children’s home in March, Cambridgeshire, between November 1994 and August 1995.

The then-manager Jean Larkin, told jurors that a pheasant carcass was found in his room which had been “dismembered”.

Ms Larkin said: “I genuinely believe I saw feathers still attached to a wing, not just pheasant feathers.”

In a search of his room, she found catalogue magazines under his bed, the witness said.

Ms Larkin said: “They were magazines that were related to children and toddlers, babies, in clothing. Underwear mostly.”

Watson, now 40, of no fixed address, has denied murder.