A man has gone on trial accused of killing a seven-year-old girl more than 30 years ago, and watching as an innocent man was tried for her murder.
David Boyd lured Nikki Allan to an abandoned building near her Sunderland home in 1992, where he stabbed her and beat her about the head with a brick, a court heard on Thursday.
Scientific breakthroughs allowed experts to detect his DNA on Nikki’s clothes in “multiple areas”, jurors at Newcastle crown court were told.
But the forensic discoveries came three decades too late for George Heron, an innocent man who went on trial for Nikki’s murder at Leeds crown court in 1993, jurors heard. He was ultimately found not guilty of the killing, with the murder remaining unsolved.
Opening the prosecution’s case, Richard Wright KC explained how Boyd came to be in the dock so long after the killing, having not even been arrested during the first investigation.
“In 1992 the use of DNA profiling in criminal cases was extremely limited. The science was in its infancy and in the intervening 30 years the use of DNA evidence in criminal cases has become almost routine,” he told jurors. “More importantly, much more sensitive tests are now available that detect DNA in much smaller quantities.”
By 2017 a new police team was re-investigating Nikki’s murder and a “massive DNA screening exercise” was carried out. Boyd was visited at his home and gave a DNA sample.
The court heard DNA found on Nikki’s cycling shorts and T-shirt was a one-in-28,000 match to Boyd.
Interviewed by police in 2019, Boyd said his DNA may have been found on Nikki’s clothing because he had spat over his balcony while Nikki was playing below, the court heard. He told detectives “it must have soaked through her clothing and on to her skin”.
Boyd, then also known as Smith or Bell, was 25 when Nikki was killed on 7 October 1992. He was well known to her family – he and his then-girlfriend babysat Nikki – and he lived on the same floor in a block of flats as Nikki’s grandparents, jurors heard.
He was also the last man to admit seeing Nikki alive, the court was told.
The day before her body was found, witnesses saw a girl who the police believe to be Nikki skipping alongside a man, Wright said. “The little girl would occasionally drop behind and would then skip to catch up,” he said. “This was Nikki Allan. She was with her killer and she was unwittingly skipping to her death.”
He added: “The little girl was plainly happy to be walking with her killer, suggesting somebody that was known to her and who she trusted.”
Boyd is accused of hitting Nikki at least once, before forcing her into the derelict Old Exchange building in Hendon through a boarded-up window.
Wright told the jury that Boyd shattered Nikki’s skull with a brick and then stabbed her repeatedly in the chest, dumping her body “into the blackness of the basement”. He told the jury that Boyd knew the layout of the building, having visited a few days earlier with a 12-year-old boy to “look for pigeons”.
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 several witnesses heard screams at about 10pm that night near the building where Nikki was found.
It was around that time that Nikki’s family realised she was missing, prompting many people to spend the evening “scouring the area”, jurors heard. Her purple coat and red shoes were found in the Old Exchange grounds the next day, leading searchers to discover her body in the basement.
Boyd denies murder. The trial continues.
