Nikki Allan’s mother seeks life-for-life sentence on daughter’s killer

David Boyd, 55, living in Norton, Stockton, in recent years, tricked Nikki Allan into following him to waste ground behind a derelict trade building, then sexually assaulted her, or tried to, before killing her to silence her, the sentencing judge told Newcastle Crown Court.

The sex offender murdered Nikki in the disused Old Exchange Building, in Sunderland’s East End, in a “brutal” way which must have brought “unimaginable terror” to his victim in the moments before her death, said Mrs Justice Christina Lambert.

But she chose did not impose a full-life tariff, and reduced what she would now have imposed as a 37-year minimum term to one of at least 29 years behind bars, because the sentencing regime in the early 1990s was less harsh.

Read more: Nikki Allan LIVE: David Boyd is sentenced for killing of Sunderland schoolgirl

Speaking outside court following the sentencing of Boyd, Nikki’s mother Sharon Henderson, 57, called for a public inquiry into the police’s handling of the original case.

She said: “I would have been satisfied with life (a whole life term).

“This is a seven-year-old bairn.

“When is anyone going to take crimes like this seriously?

“This is what happens to families like mine over and over again – injustice.”

Accompanying Ms Henderson was her other daughter Stacey, and Harriet Wistrich, director at the Centre for Women’s Justice, who represented her in court during the hearing.

Read more: David Boyd faces sentencing for killing of Nikki Allan

She said: “Now, Sharon demands that Northumbria Police are held accountable for their historic failures that allowed a 31-year wait until the right man was convicted of Nikki’s murder.

“The full extent of the failures remain unknown and therefore we are demanding a public inquiry to examine the historic investigation which led to the wrong man being prosecuted and the police failing to consider alternative suspects until over 20 years later.