Man arrested in connection with Rikki Neave murder to return to UK after not fighting extradition

The force now has 10 days to return James Watson to the UK.

Officers from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit will travel to Portugal next week.

A police spokesperson said: “We continue to work with the National Crime Agency and Polícia Judiciária.”

Watson had been arrested under a European Arrest Warrant by local officers in Lisbon on suspicion of breaching his licence.

He was first arrested in April over the unsolved murder of Rikki Neave in 1994. The six-year-old schoolboy was found strangled to death on the same estate in Peterborough where Watson grew up.

Watson, a father-of-one, has remained on bail since his arrest and was living in a hostel until he fled the country with a friend in a campervan last month.