Child killer David Boyd jailed for life for murder of Sunderland girl Nikki Allan

David Boyd, a sex offender who fantasised young girls, took his neighbour Nikki Allan to a disused building in Sunderland, where he shattered her skull with abrick before stabbing her 37 times.

Her body was found inside the Old Exchange building the following day, in October 1992, after a desperate search for the missing child.

The schoolgirl’s horrific killing remained unsolved until Boyd, now 55, was convicted of her murder after a trial at Newcastle Crown Court earlier this month.DNA advances had linked him to items of clothing worn by Nikki at the time she was killed.

Mrs Justice Lambert has now sentenced Boyd, who was 25 at the time of the murder, to life behind bars and said he must serve a minimum term of 29 years before he can apply for parole.

The judge said the terror Nikki must have felt as she tried to flee her killer as he stalked her through the abandoned building was “unimaginable” and her killing was “vicious and brutal”.

Justice Lambert told Boyd: “As the years passed by and you got on with your life you must have thought, not doubt, that you had got away with it.”

The judge told the court Boyd would have been given a longer jail term if he had been sentenced under today’s guidelines. Mrs Justice Lambert said David Boyd must serve at least 29 years before he can apply for parole. The judge had said she would have given him a minimum tariff of 37 years under today’s sentencing regime but was restricted to the guidelines that would have been in force at the time of the crime 31 years ago.

The final tragic sighting of the schoolgirl was captured on cctv one minute away from the building where she was murdered.

The eerie black and white video, which is poor quality, shows two figures, one adult sized and one much smaller, walking in the same direction.

Witness Margaret Hodgson had seen seven-year-old Nikki, who she did not know, with a man, walking towards the area where she was killed and said the little girl would skip to catch up if she fell behind him as they walked.

Prosecutor Richard Wright KC said during the trial: “That was Nikki Allan. She was with her killer and she was unwittingly skipping to her death.”

Nikki was described by her grieving mum Sharon Henderson as a “bright and sparky” child with a beautiful smile who was deeply loved. Boyd, of Chesterton Court, Norton, Stockton, Teesside, denied Nikki’s murder but was found guilty after a trial.

His conviction ended three decades of anguish over who killed Nikki.

In 1993 George Heron, who was 24 at the time, was charged and went on trial for Nikki’s murder at Leeds Crown Court but was cleared. In 2014, Northumbria Police arrested 47-year-old serial killer Steven Grieveson, who was already in prison for murdering four teenage boys, on suspicion of Nikki’s murder.

He was questioned and bailed but he faced no further action.

In April 2017, the force set up a new team to investigate Nikki’s murder and DNA samples were taken from 839 men who had lived in the area the time of the murder. Boyd’s sample was taken on October 4 2017.

The court heard modern scientific testing then found DNA matching Boyd on multiple places on Nikki’s clothing.

By then, Boyd had indecently assaulted a nine year old girl at a park in Stockton, Teesside, in April 1999.

He had approached the victim and her friend, both of whom he did not know, and asked what they were doing. He asked the victim if she had any knickers on and then sexually assaulted her when she did not answer.

The girls screamed and ran away and Boyd was picked out at an identity procedure and later convicted of indecent assault. In 2000 Boyd told a doctor he had feelings of “guilt and shame” about his behaviour and said he had been “depressed and drunk and acted on impulse”.

He later told a probation officer he had had “dirty thoughts” about the victim and had begun to feel excited about the thought of touching the girls. Boyd said he later felt “ashamed and disgusted” with himself and blamed alcohol for leading him to behave like that.

But he admitted to a probation officer that when he was 22 years old, just three years before he killed Nikki, he began to fantasise about children, particularly young girls. He confessed he would “think about young girls being naked and what it would be like to touch their body and have sexual intercourse”.

Boyd had also been convicted of breach of the peace in October 1986 after he approached four children, aged between eight and ten, in Sacriston, County Durham then grabbed one of them, a girl, by the arm and asked to kiss her before telling the group not to tell anyone.

He has no other convictions relating to child victims but in November 1986 he was convicted of exposure after he ran past an adult female on three occasions, while naked from the waist down. He told a psychiatrist at that time he had been exposing himself to women since he was 16 years old and “couldn’t help it”.

In March 1997 he was investigated for an offences of indecent exposure on a school field, which involved a 15-year-old girl.

Boyd confessed he had exposed himself to three girls and had been taking drink and drugs but did not know why he acted in that way.

He faced no charges and was not convicted of any offence, despite the admissions he made. Boyd was known in 1992 as David Smith or David Bell.

He lived close to Nikki in the same block of flats at Wear Garth in Sunderland. Jason Pitter KC, defending, said this was a “terrible case” and that Boyd has learning difficulties with a low IQ.