Nikki Allan murder: David Boyd guilty of killing Sunderland girl

David Boyd will be sentenced on 23 May for murdering Nikki Allan

A convicted child abuser has been found guilty of brutally murdering a seven-year-old girl more than 30 years ago.

Nikki Allan was repeatedly hit with a brick and stabbed dozens of times before her body was abandoned in a derelict building near her home in Sunderland in October 1992.

David Boyd, 55, from Stockton-on-Tees, was convicted at Newcastle Crown Court after a three-week trial.

Nikki's mother said the "evil man" had "slipped through the net" for decades.

He will be sentenced on 23 May.

• A mother's 30-year hunt for her daughter's killer

Boyd, then aged 25, was a neighbour of Nikki's at the Wear Garth flats in the east end of Sunderland and his partner had been the girl's babysitter.

However, he avoided suspicion in the initial Northumbria Police investigation because detectives were focussed on another man - also a neighbour - 24-year-old George Heron.

He was prosecuted but acquitted at a trial in 1993 after a judge ruled police had used "oppressive" tactics when questioning him and said his confession had been obtained under duress.

Nikki Allan was killed on 7 October 1992

Boyd was familiar with the abandoned Old Exchange building about 300 yards from where he and Nikki lived, and knew how to get inside through a broken, boarded-up window.

DNA matching his was found on Nikki's clothes and he bore a "striking resemblance" to a man seen with Nikki shortly before her death, prosecutors said.

The trial heard Boyd, of Chesterton Court in Norton, confessed to having sexual fantasies about young girls and was convicted of indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl in 1999.

He also had a conviction for indecent exposure in 1997 when he flashed three young girls in a park and one for breaching the peace in 1986 when he grabbed a 10-year-old girl and asked her for a kiss.

Prosecutor Richard Wright KC previously told jurors Nikki was lured to the building by someone she knew and the "irresistible conclusion" was it was done for a "sinister purpose" even though there was no evidence of a sexual assault.

He said the case against Boyd was "circumstantial but compelling" but if he was not the murderer then Nikki must have been killed by a "phantom" who had left no evidence behind.

The jury of 10 women and two men in Boyd's trial reached their verdict after two-and-a-half hours of deliberation.

The public gallery erupted with raucous cheers and cries of "thank you" when the verdict was read out. Police officers had to be summoned into the court to restore order.

Boyd, dressed in a white T-shirt, did not visibly react and was remanded into custody.

Nikki Allan was killed in the Old Exchange building in the Hendon area of Sunderland

Outside court, Nikki's mother Sharon Henderson, who campaigned tirelessly to keep her daughter's case in the public consciousness, spoke of the "injustice" her family had lived with for three decades.

Addressing the botched police investigation in 1992, she told reporters: "This evil man slipped through the net to murder Nikki when he was on their files in the first place.

"Three doors down from Nikki's grandparents [where Boyd had been living]. They should have investigated him straight away."

Asked how she had managed to keep fighting for justice, she replied: "Because Nikki's my daughter and I love her."

Nikki's mother Sharon Henderson spoke to reporters outside Newcastle Crown Court

Speaking after the verdict, Assistant Chief Constable Brad Howe of Northumbria Police praised Nikki's family's "patience and strength over the last 30 years", adding: "Today is about justice for Nikki and her family."

"David Boyd hid his crime, lying about his involvement and prolonging the family's suffering, knowing all along that he had taken the life of their little girl," he said.

He said the investigation had been one of the "most complex and comprehensive ever conducted" by the force.

Det Ch Supt Lisa Theaker, the senior investigating officer in the case, added: "Nikki would have been 37 now and who knows what her life could have been.

"But her future was cruelly taken away from her by David Boyd. The pain and suffering that he has caused, and to so many people, is immeasurable."

Christopher Atkinson, head of the Complex Casework Unit at Crown Prosecution Service North East, said: "Despite the unimaginable grief endured by Nikki's family, Boyd continued to pretend that he was not involved in the killing for 30 years."