I really hope there is justice for Rikki and his siblings, but I have no sympathy whatsoever for his mother's 'suffering'.
IN life Ruth Neave treated her six-year-old son Rikki worse than a dog. The little boy was seen to grovel at her feet on one occasion pathetically crying out: ''I love you mummy, I love you mummy'' after she had gripped him round the throat.
This was not out of the ordinary.
When enraged, his mother thought nothing of punching, kicking and throwing him about in front of neighbours in Redmile Walk, Welland, Peterborough. She would scream threats at the terrified child.
On one occasion she was seen dangling him by his feet from a bridge, 15 ft above a river in March.
In sharp contrast to the way she treated him in life, Neave showed tenderness to her son when he was dead. When it was too late to give the little boy any hope of a life filled with any love or understanding.
After Rikki was found and taken to a mortuary, his mother was seen to show an "extraordinary" interest in her son's body. She was seen touching him, stroking him, and kissing his cheek.
The warped relationship between this mother and son was just one element of the Ruth Neave murder trial which gripped the people of Peterborough for four weeks, and was in turns shocking and sensational.
