David Boyd, who was last Friday found guilty of the 1992 murder of seven-year old Nikki Allan has today been handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 29 years at Newcastle Crown Court.
Nikki’s mother, Sharon Henderson, who has campaigned for justice for her daughter for over 30 years is now calling for a public inquiry into the investigation and police failures that allowed Boyd to escape investigation. Sharon has instructed legal charity Centre for Women’s Justice to pursue legal action to hold Northumbria police to account.
Harriet Wistrich, solicitor and director at Centre for Women’s Justice, read a statement on behalf of Sharon Henderson outside the Court following the sentencing hearing today.
Full Statement:
“Sharon Henderson was 25 at the time her beautiful seven-year-old daughter, Nikki, was murdered by David Boyd, she is now 56. She thanks the efforts of all those involved in bringing the murderer to justice and welcomes the sentence handed down today in court to the man who so brutally took Nikki’s life and in doing so caused irrevocable damage to Sharon and all her family. Quite rightly, the gravity of the sentence passed today reflects Boyd’s refusal to plead guilty which meant that Sharon and family members had to endure hearing details of the horrific murder at trial a second time around.
This, however, is not the end of her campaign for Justice. Now Sharon demands that Northumbria police are held accountable for their historic failures that allowed a thirty-one 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 twenty years later. We are also preparing a complaint to be lodged with the Independent Office of Police Complaints and exploring a civil claim for damages on Sharon’s behalf.
The failures stem from a flawed and corrupt initial investigation into Nikki’s murder which include the following factors:
The original investigation in 1992 was marred by tunnel vision which focussed on only one suspect, George Heron.
The police sought to bolster their case by the use of unethical and potentially unlawful means in order to secure a charge. In particular they secured ‘a confession’ from the man they prosecuted ‘by means of oppression’.
A key eyewitness, Margaret Hodgson saw the murder suspect walking with a little girl skipping behind him towards the Old Exchange building, the scene of the crime. She described a man that did not match Heron and she failed to identify him on the ID parade.
The police misrepresented to Heron the evidence and the strength of evidence implicating him. In particular, in interview, they deliberately and misleadingly claimed that he had been positively identified by two key eyewitnesses when he had not and indeed neither of those witnesses subsequently picked him out on identity parades.
They subjected Heron to repetitive and oppressive questioning in the face of his repeated denials until eventually, worn down, Heron agreed to a false account of the killing.
ID parades were held only after Heron had been interviewed and two key witnesses failed to identify him.
Heron’s sister, Michelle and her boyfriend, Darren Baker provided alibis for Heron, but both were arrested for assisting an offender. Baker was held for four days and under duress provided an incriminating account against Heron, which he subsequently retracted during cross examination at trial.
When police said, following Heron’s acquittal that they were not looking for anyone else, it told Boyd, they were not looking for him and will have provided him with a sense of impunity:
As the evidence produced recently in the trial of David Boyd revealed, he was a likely suspect who should have been investigated at the time. In particular, he lived very close to Nikki, he knew her because his girlfriend baby sat for her once.
He told the police in door-to-door enquiries he knew Nikki at the time and was the last known person to see her alive.
He was familiar with the Old Exchange Building, having taken a 12-year-old boy there days before.
Unlike Heron, he had previous convictions including one involving an approach to four girls aged 8 to 10, grabbing one and asking for a kiss, telling her not to say anything.
Although only convicted of one other – serious – sexual offence since, we don’t know how many other crimes Boyd may have got away with since that time, given how many victims of sexual violence don’t have confidence to report.
The police announcement they were not looking for anyone else also:
Led Sharon and her family to believe that Heron was the right suspect who had got away with murder on a ‘legal technicality’ and led to a loss of faith in the justice system.
Provoked anger from the local community about the failure to secure a conviction led some to outrageously blame Sharon for being a bad mother.
In the years after Heron’s conviction there was no meaningful police re-investigation and Sharon felt her efforts to push for results were dismissed. Her trust in the police has never been fully restored. Eventually she resorted to investigating suspects herself, identifying Boyd (under one of his pseudonyms) as a likely suspect. It was only after Sharon went to see the Chief Constable of Northumbria Police, Steve Ashman, in 2017 and begged him to launch a re-investigation of the murder that eventually the new team were appointed that brought Boyd to justice.
Why was this grieving single mother with no resources left in this position for so long? That is why a public inquiry into this scandal is essential.
Finally we would urge anyone who may believe they are a victim of Boyd to come forward to the police or the Centre for Women’s Justice.”