A police officer's son accused of murdering schoolboy Rikki Neave has denied having an unhealthy interest in dead birds and young children in underwear.
James Watson was only 13 at the time it is alleged he killed six-year-old Rikki in Peterborough on November 28 1994.
The little boy was found strangled, stripped and posed in a star shape in woodland the next day.
Watson, now 40, was charged with Rikki's murder after his DNA was allegedly found on the youngster's discarded clothes.
Jurors at the Old Bailey have heard that he was seen with the victim on the morning of November 28, when both children should have been at school.
A police officer's son accused of murdering schoolboy Rikki Neave has denied having an unhealthy interest in dead birds and young children. James Watson (left) was only 13 at the time it is alleged he killed six-year-old Rikki in Peterborough on November 28 1994
Giving evidence on Monday, Watson told jurors that was the 'first and only time' he had met Rikki.
The defendant also dismissed allegations that he was interested in dead birds and images of young children in underwear.
Watson was taken into care after his father, a serving police officer with Cambridgeshire Police, was arrested and subsequently jailed, the court was told.
He could not stay with his mother instead because of the person she was living with, the jury was told.
Watson said: 'It was not my fault that I had to leave and go into care.'
He hated school and would play truant 'an awful lot'.
'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.
After being dropped off at school by taxi, he would walk around, sometimes at a shopping centre, before getting picked up for the journey back to the children's home, jurors heard.
He denied ever going into the home of Rikki and his family on the Welland estate in Peterborough.
Watson also denied
