The head of major crime for Cambridgeshire – and his cold case review team- are to take a fresh look at the 20 year old murder of school boy Rikki Neave.

Detective Superintendent Paul Fullwood, head of the major crime unit for Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, made the announcement following a two hour meeting with Rikki’s mother Ruth and her husband Gary.

Ruth and Gary presented Det Supt Fullwood and Mick Flavin, of the cold case team, with a 50 slide presentation last Thursday at Parkside Police Station, Cambridge, pin pointing what they claimed were inconsistencies within the case files.

Gary and Ruth have spent the past 18 months poring over witness statements obtained from the 1996 trial at Northampton Crown Court which cleared Mrs Neave of the murder. She admitted child neglect and abuse and was jailed for seven years.

Det Supt Fullwood said: “We had a positive meeting with Mrs Neave and her husband Gary and have agreed to re-examine a number of matters they raised.

“At this stage there remains insufficient evidence to start a fresh investigation, however this case will always remain open until those responsible for the tragic death of Rikki can be brought to justice.”

In a joint statement Ruth and Gary said: “Before the meeting last Thursday we had no faith in the police at all.

“We felt we could tell them things that they need to investigate and after the meeting we felt confident that they will do what is necessary to get justice for Rikki and his family and mum.”

They added: “For the first time we felt that we are all reading from the same hymn sheet.

“All we want is to find who killed Rikki and we all want the same outcome”.

The couple said they now firmly believed police will “do it; they have no preconceptions of the case and they will do it justice for us all.”

Mrs Neave said: “It was a very positive meeting and I was surprised with them; they hung off every word of what Gary told them and the information he had put together and presented. This was the first time we felt they had genuinely listened, unlike previous occasions when we had tried to get the case looked at again.

“I know they will do the right thing and if they get a result through this we will be happy with that.”

Ruth said they had been told the re-examination of the evidence could take up to four months, which was a reasonable time period.

Mrs Neave and her husband recently met MP Steve Barclay to discuss the case that he followed up with a letter to chief constable Simon Parr.

* Rikki’s naked body was found in woodland not far from his Peterborough home in November 1994.