Justice at last for mother who fought for 30 years to bring her little girl’s killer to court
Neighbour found guilty of murdering Nikki, 7, in 1992
A MOTHER’s tireless three- decade quest for justice finally came to an end yesterday when a paedophile was convicted of murdering her sevenyear-old daughter.
Sharon Henderson, 56, was overcome with emotion as the jury at Newcastle Crown Court found David Boyd, 55, guilty of murdering her daughter Nikki Allan in October 1992.
As the verdict was announced there were cheers of ‘yes and ‘thank you’ in the public gallery as family and friends hugged each other. Outside court Nikki’s sister Stacey said: ‘It’s the best day of my life.’ Their mother’s efforts had led to the local Chief Constable ordering a new police inquiry using the latest DNA scientific techniques, which ultimately revealed their former neighbour Boyd as the killer.
When confronted with the new evidence in a police interview, he was wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan: ‘I am unstoppable.’
It was an understandable feeling given he had lived for three decades as a free man following a string of police blunders in the initial murder investigation.
In that time another innocent man was tried and cleared of the horrific killing. But through all the years, Ms Henderson never gave up hope of seeing her daughter’s killer brought to justice.
The brutal murder of her beloved Nikki – stabbed 37 times and battered with a brick before being dumped in a derelict building – is a nightmare that will forever haunt her.
Throughout the trial Ms Henderson was often overcome with emotion, barely able to listen to any evidence in court.
She has made no secret of her alcohol and mental health problems triggered by the crime and her resulting determination that the killer was caught.
The mother- of- four’s efforts resulted in a meeting in 2017 with Northumbria Police Chief Constable Steve Ashman and the decision to fund a proper review of the case using the latest forensic techniques.
The police accept that Boyd may not have been caught but for Ms Henderson’s perseverance.
They used a brand new ‘Y’ DNA technique – which separates the male bloodline – on evidence from the time to crack the case. But the decades of suffering could have been avoided were it not for their initial blunders.
‘I was so badly let down by the police, they had so many chances to catch Boyd years and years ago,’ Ms Henderson said. ‘To hear everything they missed or failed to investigate has been devastating.’
Outside court yesterday she added: ‘This evil man slipped through the net to murder Nikki when he was on their [police] files in the first place’.
In 1992 police convinced themselves another neighbour, George Heron, was Nikki’s killer and used ‘oppressive’ questioning methods to force a ‘confession’ after 120 denials.
When he went on trial at Leeds Crown Court the following year the judge ruled his taped ‘confessions’ could not be put before the jury, who went on to acquit Mr Heron.
At the time Ms Henderson believed the ruling meant her daughter’s killer had walked free.
She and the police were both wrong about Mr Heron.
But Boyd, the real killer and by his own admission the last man to see Nikki alive, was never considered a suspect. He gave a witness statement describing seeing the schoolgirl playing outside shortly before she vanished.
Aged 25 at the time, he was considered a ‘helpful’ neighbour by detectives. They were unconcerned that three days earlier he had taken a 12-year- old boy to look for pigeons into the same derelict building where Nikki’s body was found – gaining access through the only way in, a high partially boarded window that
‘I was so badly let down by the police’
bloodstains showed had been used by the killer.
Boyd, who lived in the same block of flats in Sunderland as the victim, had been convicted of a breach of the peace for approaching four girls aged eight and ten, asking one for a kiss and then telling the children not to tell anyone.
Months after this he indecently exposed himself to a woman out jogging. But these convictions six years before the murder didn’t register with police.
Alarm bells still didn’t ring in 1997 when Boyd admitted exposing himself to three young girls in a park, or in 1999 when he indecently assaulted a nine-year- old girl, also in a park, and was jailed for 18 months.
The offence put him on the sex offenders register. While awaiting sentence Boyd told his probation officer that at the age of 22 he began having obscene sexual fantasies about young girls. He said it was a ‘phase’ he went through.
By this time the trail had gone cold for the police, but not for Nikki’s mother – even as her life was spiralling out of control.
Speaking in recent days Ms Henderson said: ‘While there was still breath in my body I would never have stopped until I got the man who killed Nikki, nothing mattered more in my life than getting justice. Over these 30 years I have been through hell. I’ve fought against problems with alcohol and I’ve been sectioned in a psychiatric hospital.
‘The thought of what that monster did to her in that building and the fear she must have felt will haunt me for the rest of my life and it has driven me on to get justice for all these years.’
Ms Henderson found herself regularly in magistrates’ courts due to disagreements with neighbours. She set fire to one’s shed, smashed a window with a brick in another row and was convicted of harassment, usually targeting people she believed knew something about the murder or had evidence.
‘It felt like the only one who never forgot about Nikki was me and that was a lonely struggle,’ she said.
She launched an online petition calling for a full re-investigation by the police and spent a Christmas putting up posters appealing for information.
There was briefly hope of a breakthrough in 2014 when serial killer Steven Grieveson was arrested on suspicion of Nikki’s murder. The so- called ‘Sunderland Strangler’ had previously been convicted of murdering four teenage boys around the same time during the early 90s, but attempts to link him to Nikki’s death came to nothing.
Ms Henderson’s tireless campaigning eventually bore fruit. The new inquiry led by the now Assistant Chief Constable Lisa Theaker – a star of the Channel 4 reality
‘Nothing mattered more than justice’
series Hunted – used novel scientific methods to obtain partial DNA profiles from Nikki’s clothing that probably came from the killer. Boyd’s DNA was on the national database but the nature of the profile meant it was not possible to match stored profiles of criminals.
Police had to knock on doors of men linked to the flats and Nikki to get fresh samples. Boyd was the 55th man tested and a match for the DNA profile appeared on the operation computer screens in November 2017.
It was the breakthrough they needed. To strengthen their case, police spent four years delving into his life and collecting 839 DNA profiles of men potentially connected in other ways.
No one else on a European database of 28,000 people matched the profile. Boyd, who never gave evidence in court, was born in London and moved regularly as his father was in the Army.
His parents split up when he was a child and he moved to a residential school at 14. At 17 he lived in a Barnardo’s children’s home in Durham for a year before going to a boarding house.
He ended up at the Wear Garth flats in Sunderland when he moved in with his then girlfriend, who has since died. The quadrant apartment block, that has since been bulldozed, was home to many deprived families and misfits.
Over the years Boyd did little with his life and never worked. A former neighbour in Stockton-on-Tees said Boyd was ‘evasive and secretive’, refusing to even reveal his name.
‘Within a week or two of moving in, the parties started in his flat.’
He was playing rave music at high volume and there were always young girls visiting his flat,’ the neighbour said. ‘We’re talking kids aged about 15 or 16.’
When interviewed by police, Boyd lied about his movements on the night of the murder and even when confronted with the damning DNA evidence he tried to explain it away by claiming to have spat over the balcony when Nikki was playing below.
But when the case came to court he knew the game was up. He stayed silent, offering no evidence in his defence and showing not a hint of remorse.
Advanced 21st century science had succeeded where blundering police in the 20th century failed.
Boyd, of Norton, Teesside, will be given a mandatory life sentence on May 23.
‘He was evasive and secretive’