A man accused of murdering a six-year-old boy when he was in his early teens has denied having an unhealthy interest in dead birds and young children.

James Watson, now 40, was 13 when he is alleged to have killed schoolboy Rikki Neave on 28 November 1994.

The child was strangled, stripped, posed in a star shape and left in woodland in Peterborough, where he was found the following day.

Watson, the son of a serving police officer, was charged with murder after his DNA was found on Rikki’s discarded clothes. He denies the charge.

He admitted being with Rikki on the morning the boy died, but told the Old Bailey on Monday that it was the “first and only time” they met.

Watson denied ever going to Rikki’s family home on the Welland estate in Peterborough.

The defendant, who was living in care at the time, also dismissed evidence given by a former girlfriend that he was interested in dead birds and had not, he said, once killed a sparrow with a stone, as she claimed.

Asked about another accusation that he kept a “bespoke” clothing catalogue, featuring young children in underwear, in his room when he was in care, he replied: “Absolutely not.”

His lawyer, Jennifer Dempster QC, said: “If you had a Littlewoods-type catalogue did you have that for any purpose connected with looking at pictures of children?”

Watson called the idea “crazy” and insisted he had no interest in that type of material.

On the claim that he kept the carcass of a pheasant in his room at the same children’s home, Watson said he was against “animal cruelty” but found the iridescence of pheasant feathers “fascinating”.

Watson was living in care after his father was jailed and he could not live with his mother because of the person she was living with, he said.

The jury heard he was taken to school by taxi each day, but hated it and played truant “an awful lot”, he said.

“I did not fit in. I did not like having to sit there for hours. I didn’t have any friends at school,” he said.

The trial continues.

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