HE THOUGHT HE HAD GOT AWAY WITH IT
Nikki’s killer gets minimum jail term of 29 years
THE sexual predator who got away with the murder of sevenyear-old Nikki Allan for 31 years has finally been jailed for life.
Paedophile David Boyd, 55, who lured Nikki to a derelict building where he assaulted and killed her, must serve a minimum of 29 years.
Sentencing him, Newcastle crown court judge Mrs Justice Lambert told Boyd: “As the years passed and you got on with your life, you must have thought often about Nikki’s murder.
“You must have thought, no doubt with some satisfaction and relief, that you had got away with it.”
Boyd had to be sentenced according to guidelines in place at the time of the offence in 1992, and Mrs Justice Lambert said under today’s rules he would have been handed a 37-year minimum jail term.
Nikki’s mother Sharon Henderson, 56, left court shaking her head.
“She said: “Life should mean life. I had no idea they were going to use this system.
“He should never be freed.”
In her victim impact statement, she said: “David Boyd has not only destroyed her life... but also the lives of my daughters and grandchildren.”
Nikki’s father David Allan said he was haunted by the thought of Nikki lying in the Old Exchange Building in Sunderland on the night that she died. Boyd was able to lure her there because he knew her family.
He was caught when a review of Nikki’s case found a DNA match on her clothing.
Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, told of Boyd’s history of sex offending.
In 1986, he had run past a woman three times naked from the waist down. In 1987, he was investigated for exposing himself to a girl, aged 15.
He had convictions for sex offences involving children, and admitted he had “sexual fantasies” about young girls, telling a psychologist in 1999 it was “a phase” he went through at 22.