A woman dubbed Britain's most evil mother has insisted she had never hurt a child as she made a fresh appeal for information on the 20th anniversary of her son's murder.
The body of six-year-old Rikki Neave was found naked in woodland near Peterborough's Welland Estate on November 29, 1994. He had been strangled.
His mother, Ruth Neave, was charged with murder but later found not guilty.
She pleaded guilty to child neglect and cruelty and was sentenced to seven years in prison. The case caused a national outcry after details of horrific abuse led to one national newspaper branding her "evil" and yesterday Mrs Neave, now 45, acknowledged the perception of her guilt still lingered.
She held a press conference in Cambridgeshire, and appealed for new information to catch her son's killer.
She claimed she was pressurised into pleading guilty and said Cambridgeshire Police had wrongly charged her as an "easy target". Protestors gathered outside the venue objecting to her raising the case.
Her daughter Rochelle Neave, now 23, said: "Although I was only young I can still remember the abuse. I can remember her dragging my sister up the stairs by her hair and there was never any food in the house. She spent all her money on drugs.
"She should let it lie."
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