Rikki Neave ‘not in woods when I searched’, former police officer tells court

Roberto Silveri, previously known as PC Robert McNeill, told the Old Bailey he was confident that Rikki was not there on the night he disappeared.

The youngster’s naked body was found the next day in the same woodland Mr Silveri searched.

James Watson, 40, is accused of strangling the six-year-old and posing his naked body in woods in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, in November 1994.

Mr Silveri said murder investigation detectives later pointed out that Rikki was found a short distance into the woods, an area he said he had previously checked.

He told jurors on Monday (28 March): “I was taken to the spot where he was located.

“Had that body been there that night, I would have stood on him.

“It was on the path that I walked through.”

Asked by defence counsel Jennifer Dempster QC if the body was there, Mr Silveri replied: “Absolutely not.”

He added: “A white, naked body would have stood out like a beacon.”

He said he spent time calling out Rikki’s name, believing the boy might have been “hiding” from him.

Watson, of no fixed address, was 13 at the time of Rikki’s death.

He denies murder.

The trial continues.