‘I hope the truth does – it is the least Nikki’s
NIKKI ALLAN MURDER 25 YEARS ON
It was one of those unforgettable stories that come along once in a lifetime for most journalists on provincial newspapers.
Nikki Allan, a seven-yearold girl from The Garths, in Sunderland’s East End, went missing from home on the night of October 7, 1992.
A huge search operation involving police and more than 100 members of the public is mounted, but finds no trace of her, and is stood down in the early hours.
The next morning, police convene a press conference, to make a public appeal to help find Nikki.
Time is of the essence, and they know the first few hours in any missing persons investigation are crucial.
Reporters, photographers, radio journalists and TV crews gather in an upstairs room at Gill Bridge Avenue police station in Sunderland, hoping for more details on the missing girl, and ready to do their bit to help find her. Moments before the press conference is due to begin, an officer enters the room and speaks to Superintendent Alex Price, the senior officer due to hold the ‘presser’.
He’s a man I know well, from regular dealings in my job as the Sunderland Echo’s crime reporter, and from the way his face changes and he exits the room, I can tell something is wrong. The press conference is delayed and the journalists start to become restless. Then I received a call on the office mobile – the big oldfashioned device which bulges in my coat pocket. I’m told a body has been found in the Old Exchange Building in High Street East, and you get the feeling this story is about to change. The press conference duly goes ahead as an appeal for missing Nikki as the police issue her picture, some details of her last known movements, and what she was wearing.
Most of the media pack disperse, heading back to file their stories. Except for me and Gilbert Johnston, the Echo’s chief photographer.We quickly jump in the car and go down High Street East, to the Old Exchange Building.
The police have the front of the building taped off and the white-suited scenes-of-crime officers (Soco) are heading in to begin the thankless task of examining what’s inside.
I approach a Soco I’ve got to know during my two years as crime reporter. “Go away, you’ll get me shot,” he says.
He’s usually helpful in an off-the-record sort of way, and Gilbert and I know we’re onto something here. Gil snaps off a few scene shots and we get in the car and head back to Pennywell, where I file the story for that day’s paper.
Later in the day the police confirm they have found a body, and it is identified as that of missing Nikki. We’re now covering a child murder.
We return to the East End and begin ‘door knocking’ in the Garths – asking residents if they knew Nikki, what they’ve heard, and if they were involved in the previous night’s fruitless search.
It’s a thankless task, and the police are doing the same, conducting their door-todoor inquiries, and people in this close-knit community aren’t too keen on outsiders asking questions.
The mood is one of overwhelming sadness, and concern. Who could have done this, and could he strike again? We return to the office to update the story for later editions of the paper, and so it goes on, with colleagues joining me in the quest for information about the victim, her family, and how this could have happened.
Murders, sadly, are something you get used to covering as a crime reporter, but this one is different. It’s someone’s little girl, and she was so close to home.
I’m told by a source later in the day that Nikki was stabbed to death, so am initially confused when police release a statement saying she’s been bludgeoned with a blunt instrument.
It quickly dawns on me that the information I’ve been given is their ‘holdback line’ – something that isn’t made public, and only the killer will know. For obvious reasons I don’t print it, as it could jeopardise the whole inquiry.
Over the next days the story unfolds. Mum Sharon Prest had taken Nikki and her other three children to visit their grandfather Dickie at his home just a few doors away, and Nikki left at about 8.30pm to go home. She never arrived. It’s said she was seen begging for pennies outside the Boar’s Head pub, over the road from the Garths. It’s feasible, as Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ Night aren’t too far away.