Paedophile who murdered seven-year-old Nikki Allan in 1992 is guilty
Paedophile who battered seven-year-old Nikki Allan with a brick and stabbed her 37 times in 1992 is convicted of her murder
- Nikki Allan was murdered in 1992 and her body found in a derelict warehouse
- David Boyd, 55, denies murder and court heard he had previous convictions
A paedophile was finally brought to justice today for the 1992 murder of seven-year-old Nikki Allan.
Serial sex offender David Boyd, 55, had escaped suspicion for three decades thanks to Northumbria Police’s fixation with a different, entirely innocent man.
The real killer – who fantasised about sexually abusing young girls – was so cocky that he would never be caught he even gave a statement to police used in cleared George Heron’s 1993 trial.
But at Newcastle Crown Court today the jury got the right man, finally identifying Boyd as the brute who stabbed Nikki 37 times after bludgeoning her with a brick.
Nikki’s grieving family and supporters let out loud cheers and thanked the jury after her killer was found guilty of murder.
Boyd, now of Norton, Stockton-on-Tees, had cased out his killing site at the abandoned Old Exchange Building in Hendon, Sunderland three days before he enacted his evil plan.
David Boyd, 55, escaped justice for 30 years but today was finally convicted of his evil crime
Seven-year-old Nikki Allan was brutally murdered in 1992, a crime Boyd has been found guilty
Boyd was brought to justice by a combination of Nikki’s mother Sharon Henderson’s refusal to let the case be forgotten. Ms Henderson seen here outside court during the trial.
Then on the night of October 7, 1992, he lured Nikki – who he knew through his babysitter girlfriend Caroline Branton – away from her Garths housing estate home.
READ MORE: How Nikki Allan’s mother finally got justice after 30 years
Sharon Henderson, mother of Nikki Allan, leaves Newcastle Crown Court on April 19
For more than 30 years Sharon Henderson never gave up hope of seeing her daughter’s killer brought to justice.
The brutal murder of her beloved Nikki – stabbed 37 times and battered with a brick before being dumped in a derelict building – is a nightmare that will forever haunt her.
Throughout the trial that has finally seen the truth of what happened that dark October night in 1992 revealed, Ms Henderson, 56, appeared an emotional wreck.
Supported by friends and family, she tried to listen to the evidence but was often forced to leave the court in tears.
She has made no secret of her alcohol and mental health problems, triggered by the crime and her resulting obsession that the killer must be caught.
Heartbreaking CCTV which was too grainy to identify faces showed her skipping happily along with the man she thought she could trust.
Once they reached wasteland near the empty building he hit her and dragged her though an opening in a boarded-up window.
Inside he beat her around the head with a brick, shattering her skull.
Boyd then reached for a knife he had brought with him and stabbed her 37 times through her chest and into her heart and lungs.
Screams were heard at around 10pm as he carried out his horrific murder.
Prosecutor Prosecutor Richard Wright KC told the jury at the start of the trial: ‘He lifted and dragged her downstairs into the blackness of the basement.
‘No doubt knowing his way around, navigated the series of rooms, dragging her with him, and dumping her body in the corner of an end room.
‘He must have hoped she would remain undetected, but where in fact she would be found the next morning by two of the many local residents who were desperately searching for her.’
Mr Heron was later arrested and put on trial, then cleared by a jury at Leeds Crown Court.
But in the end Boyd was brought to justice by a combination of Nikki’s mother Sharon Henderson’s refusal to let the case be forgotten and new DNA techniques.
In 2017 she had a meeting with Northumbria Police’s Chief Constable Steve Ashman and begged him to make sure the case was reopened by a new team before his retirement as top cop.
As the cold case team harnessed new advances in DNA technology, Ms Henderson continued her own enquiries.
She gradually got closer to Boyd’s ex girlfriend Caroline Branton and her daughter, Caroline junior.
She even moved across Sunderland from her native Hendon to within a few doors of the Brantons in the former pit village of Ryhope.
Sharon learnt of Boyd’s true identity at around the same time as Northumbria Police zoned in on him.
David Boyd in 1992, which has been shown to the jury and the photofit of Nikki’s killer
Police outside the Sunderland warehouse where the body of schoolgirl Nikki was found
Boyd was tracked down to an upstairs flat in central Stockton-on-Tees.
READ MORE: The innocent man blamed for Nikki Allan’s death
He was DNA tested and found to be a one in 28,000 match for microscopic samples found at four sites on two items of Nikki’s clothing.
The DNA was on the waistband of her cycling shorts and under the armpits of her T-shirt, which itself had been under her coat. It would be the decisive factor in his trial.
Boyd – who refused to give evidence – claimed through his lawyers it was there because he would spit over the veranda outside his upstairs flat and that Nikki must have been hit by it earlier in the evening that she died. The jury saw through the lies.
How he was missed by police seems unthinkable following harrowing details revealed during his trial.
Boyd, who used alias names as a younger man, told police he was born in London and his father was in the army, so they moved around a lot.
A mannequin showing the outfit that Nikki was wearing when last seen alive, which was shown in court in the case of David Boyd
This picture dated October 10, 1992, showing police outside the building where Nikki was found
Boyd’s girlfriend at the time, Caroline Branton, told police she babysat for Nikki and her sister when their mother Sharon was out
Pictured: An aerial view of the East End of Sunderland, which has been shown to the jury during the trial of David Boyd
He said his parents split up when he was a child and his mother remarried.
30 years to get justice: How Nikki’s murder was finally solved
October 7 1992: That evening, Nikki Allan had been playing with friends outside the block of flats in Sunderland’s East End where she lived. She is lured away by neighbour David Boyd. At around 10pm she is seen skipping to catch him up as he takes her to the derelict Old Exchange building where he savagely murdered her and left her, dead or dying.
October 8 1992: Local residents help police to carry out searches of the local area overnight and Nikki’s shoes and jacket are found outside the Old Exchange. Her body is found in a dark corner of the basement.
October 1992: Police arrest neighbour George Heron and after three days of questioning, under duress, he admits killing Nikki, having denied it 120 times before. Boyd, aged 25 at the time, is never considered as a suspect and he gives a witness statement, after Mr Heron has been charged, explaining his movements on the night of the murder.
October 1993: Mr Heron is cleared of Nikki’s murder during his trial at Leeds Crown Court on the instructions of the judge, who had deemed some of the interview tapes inadmissible. Mr Heron goes into hiding and is taken in by a religious order. Police say they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the murder. Over the following years, Nikki’s mother Sharon Henderson refuses to give up her fight for justice and keeps her daughter’s murder in the public eye.
April 8 1999: Boyd indecently assaults a nine-year-old girl in a Teesside park. He later tells his probation officer he had sexual fantasies about “young girls” when he was in his early 20s.
September 2013: A reconstruction of Nikki’s disappearance is shown on the BBC Crimewatch show.
September 2016: Ms Henderson raises a petition urging the police to reinvestigate.
April 2017: She meets Northumbria Police’s then chief constable Steve Ashman to discuss the investigation and is told the force is determined to catch the killer.
October 2017: At around the 25th anniversary of the murder, police announce forensic advances have been made which could crack the case and start to carry out DNA tests.
April 17 2018: Police arrest Boyd, by now a convicted paedophile, on suspicion of Nikki’s murder and he is interviewed several times before being released pending further inquiries.
April 2019: Boyd is rearrested and questioned. In the following years, slowed by the pandemic, police individually approach and DNA test 839 men from around the country.
May 2022: Boyd is charged with Nikki’s murder and he appears before magistrates.
April 20 2023: The trial opens at Newcastle Crown Court where jurors are shown a video of the scene where Boyd dragged and dumped the little girl’s body.
May 12 2023: Boyd is convicted of murder.
At the age of 14 he went Redworth Hall residential school in County Durham and left when he was 16.
At the age of 17 he went to Barnardos at Ryton Dene near Blaydon, Gateshead.
He left when he was 18 and moved into a boarding house. He said he then moved to a resettlement unit in Chester le Street and then onto Sunderland.
But so-called ‘bad character’ evidence allowed to be put before the ten women and two men of the jury showed his true nature in horrific detail.
Newcastle Crown Court heard that Boyd in fact had a history of sexual offences against girls.
They included a sexual assault against a young girl in a park in 1999, which prompted a confession of sexual interest in children to a probation worker, Gillian Dixon.
Boyd told Ms Dixon: ‘I would think about young girls being naked, touching their body and having intercourse with them.’
He said it was ‘a phase’ he went through when he was aged around 22.
At the time of Nikki’s murder Boyd was 25. Prosecutor Richard Wright, KC, took the jury through Boyd’s previous convictions as the prosecution case had neared its conclusion.
In September 1986, six years before the murder, Boyd was summonsed to appear before Chester-le-Street magistrates for an offence of committing a breach of the peace in Sacriston, County Durham.
Mr Wrights said: ‘David Boyd approached a group of four children aged between eight and 10, took hold of a girl by the arm and asked to kiss her. He held her for a few moments and let go of her. He told the children not to tell anyone.’
On March 20, 2000, he was convicted of indecently assaulting a female under the age of 14, an offence that happened the previous year on April 8.
Mr Wright told jurors that two girls aged nine and 12 were playing in Primrose Hill Park, Stockton-on-Tees, where they were approached by Boyd.
He said: ‘David Boyd did not know either girl. He asked what they were doing and they told him they were looking for their friends.
‘He took hold of one girl’s shoulder and told her not to scream. He asked the other girl if she had any knickers on.’
Boyd then touched one of the girls before running off, leaving the terrified children to race off to find help.
He was arrested and convicted after undergoing an ID parade and was referred to probation officer Ms Dixon, who was tasked with preparing a pre-sentence report on him.
He told Ms Dixon that on the day he committed the sexual assault he had argued with his girlfriend and because it was the day his benefits were paid he’d drunk 12 cans of extra strong lager.
In a statement she said: ‘He first denied ever having sexual thoughts about young children but he subsequently informed me that when he was approximately 22 he began to fantasise about both adults and children, in particular young girls.
‘He would think about young girls being naked and touching their body and having sexual intercourse with them. He described at as a phase he was going through and something he would grow out of.’
As they were about to learn on Boyd’s past, trial judge Mrs Justice Lambert warned jurors they should not convict Boyd on the strength of his previous convictions.
She said: ‘You must not convict the defendant wholly or mainly on the basis of the evidence you are about to hear.’
Heartbroken parents Sharon Henderson and David Allan attending the funeral of their seven-year-old daughter
The crime scene in the Old Exchange Building in Hendon, Sunderland where Nikki Allan was murdered in 1992
Boyd lured Nikki away from her home then hit her and dragged her inside this building to kill her
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