Nikki Allan: Sunderland schoolgirl 'skipped to her death', court hears

A seven-year-old girl was lured to her death by a man who broke her skull with a brick before repeatedly stabbing her, a court has been told.

Nikki Allan was killed in a derelict building near her home in Hendon, Sunderland, in 1992, jurors at Newcastle Crown Court have heard.

David Boyd, who was 25 at the time and also known as Smith or Bell, denies murdering her.

Opening the prosecution’s case, Richard Wright KC said: "Over 30 years ago, on the night of 7 October 1992, a little girl called Nikki Allan was lured away from the block of flats in which she lived and towards the River Wear in Sunderland.

"The man who led her away took her into an area of wasteland behind a disused building."

Boyd, now 55, of Chesterton Court, Stockton, Teesside, is accused of hitting Nikki at least once, leaving her bloodied, before forcing her into the derelict building through a boarded-up window.

Mr Wright told jurors she had been beaten with a brick and stabbed "repeatedly", before dragging her into the basement.

Her body was dumped in a corner of an end room, where she was found the next morning by two of the many residents looking for her, prosecutors said.

Jurors were also told about George Heron, who was charged with Nikki’s murder and went on trial at Leeds Crown Court in 1993.

"The jury found him not guilty of murder," Mr Wright said. "They were right to do so. George Heron was not the killer of Nikki Allan.

"The killer of Nikki Allan was David Boyd, the man sitting in the dock at the back of this court."

Boyd was well-known to Nikki’s family and the boyfriend of her babysitter, the court heard.

Scientific breakthroughs allowed experts to detect his DNA on Nikki’s clothes in "multiple areas", jurors heard.

Mr Wright said: "The case against David Boyd is a circumstantial one but it is, we will invite you to conclude, a compelling one, a case that will enable you to come to the sure and safe conclusion that he is guilty of her murder."

He said rather than being abducted by a stranger who "bundled her into a car", Nikki was lured from near her home.

Mr Wright said a witness saw a young girl skipping alongside a man.

"The little girl would occasionally drop behind and would then skip to catch up," Mr Wright said.

"This was Nikki Allan. She was with her killer and she was unwittingly skipping to her death."

Boyd visited the old Exchange building with a 12-year-old boy to look for pigeons days before Nikki died there and he knew the interior, the court was told.

Mr Wright said there was only a "shallow pool" of murder suspects – and the killer must have been a local white man in his 20s who knew Nikki and was in the area at about 10pm and "intimately familiar" with the disused building.

Boyd told police he saw Nikki on the night of her death and was, by his own account, "the last man to describe seeing her alive", jurors heard.

Mr Wright said the prosecution does not have to prove a motive – but invited the jury to conclude the killer did not lure Nikki away for a "benign reason".

Screams were heard at around 10pm that night and the prosecution said: "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 trial continues.

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