Neighbour found guilty of Sunderland Nikki Allan murder more than 30 years after her killing

David Boyd, who was 25 at the time and later admitted having sexual fantasies about young girls, took Nikki Allan to a disused building in Sunderland, where he shattered her skull with a brick before stabbing her 37 times.

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 littlegirl would skip to catch up if she fell behind him as they walked.Prosecutor Richard Wright KC told Newcastle Crown Court: “That was Nikki Allan. She was with her killer and she was unwittingly skipping to her death.”

Nikki’s body was found inside the Old Exchange building the following day, in October 1992.

Boyd, 55, of Chesterton Court, Norton, Stockton, denied murder but has been found guilty by a jury after a trial.His conviction ends three decades of anguish over who killed Nikki.

In 1993 another former neighbour 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 then 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.

Mr Wright KC told the jury the probation officer said in a report at that time: “He initially denied ever having any sexual thoughts about young children butsubsequently informed me that, when he was approximately 22 years old, he began to fantasise about both adults and children, in particular young girls.

“He said he would think about young girls being naked and what it would be like to touch their body and have sexual intercourse but describes it as a phase he was through and something he grew out of.”

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.

Mr Wright said Boyd was known in 1992 as David Smith or David Bell and was 25 at the time.

He lived close to Nikki in the same block of flats at Wear Garth in Sunderland.Mr Wright said Boyd knew the building where Nikki was murdered well and knew how to get into it.

Mr Wright said Nikki was last seen at 9.43pm that evening outside a pub called the Boar’s Head, opposite the block of flats where she lived, about five minutes away from the Old Exchange Building.

The court heard a cctv camera captured a grainy image of the killer walking ahead of Nikki, towards the Old Exchange Building just before 10pm and witnesses heard screams at around 10pm.

Mr Wright told jurors: “The man who led her away took her into an area of wasteland behind a disused building. There, he struck her at least one blow that caused her to bleed.

“He then forced her through an opening in a boarded up window into the derelict building.

“It was the only point of access to that building and this man plainly knew that building well and knew exactly where and how to get into it.

“Inside the building the man who took her there beat Nikki Allan about the head with a brick. He shattered her skull.

“He then used a knife to stab her repeatedly through her chest, the knife being driven in and out of her body many times through the same hole, into her heart, into her lungs, making sure of the job of killing her.

“He lifted and dragged her downstairs into the blackness of the basement, and 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, where 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.

“Nikki Allan was seven years old.”

Mr Wright said Boyd was well known to Nikki’s family and his girlfriend used to babysit her.

Mr Wright said there was no clear motive for the killing and added: “One distinct possibility is that her brutal death was not what had been intended at the outset but was instead brought about by her ability to identify the person who had taken her there and had hurt her outside the building.”

The court heard on the day she was killed Nikki had been seen playing, along with other children, around the area known as The Garths.