Sharon Henderson, whose seven-year-old daughter was murdered in Sunderland 31 years ago, has today (9 August 2023) started the process of holding Northumbria Police accountable for their failures to adequately investigate the crime which led to them initially jailing the wrong suspect while leaving the man responsible for her murder free to continue offending.
Sharon Henderson’s solicitor, Harriet Wistrich, at the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) has today written to the Chief Constable of Northumbria Police to notify her of the intention to pursue litigation and take other action to hold the police force accountable. Wistrich has separately written to the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner to invite her to conduct a full formal inquiry.
Seven-year-old Nikki Allan was lured by a man from her home in the East End of Sunderland to a derelict building where she was stabbed multiple times and hit over the head with a brick.
Following an initial murder investigation Northumbria Police arrested the wrong man and forced a confession from him. When the confession was thrown out by the judge at a trial in Leeds Crown Court in 1993, the wrongly accused man, George Heron was acquitted.
It took Northumbria Police another twenty five years to commence a full review of all the evidence available at the time of the murder, after Sharon Henderson begged them to properly resource the investigation. In 2018, David Boyd was arrested and convicted of Nikki’s murder in May 2023.
At the trial this year, in addition to the new DNA evidence that linked Boyd with the crime, the Crown relied upon significant evidence that had been available since 1992, including the following:
Boyd lived three doors away from Nikki’s family and knew Nikki, as his partner had occasionally babysat for her (the circumstances of the offence were such that the offender was likely to have known Nikki).
Boyd had a previous conviction from 1986 for breach of the peace the circumstances being that he had approached three children aged 8 to 10, and grabbed one of them trying to kiss her and telling her not to scream.
Boyd closely fitted the description of a man an eyewitness described leading a little girl to the direction of the murder scene at the relevant time.
Boyd provided a false alibi of his movements when questioned by the police during the original investigation. Boyd’s account was contradicted by others who knew him. Basic detective work relating to Boyd’s movements in 1992 would have identified the evidence that undermined his false alibi.
Boyd had close associations with the derelict building where Nikki’s body was found, having taken another child there days earlier to ‘look at pigeons’ (the opportunistic nature of the offending in relation to Nikki was consistent with the offender being familiar with the derelict building to which Nikki was taken).
Harriet Wistrich, solicitor for Sharon Henderson, said: “Sharon and her daughters have suffered immense pain and damage as a consequence of historic police failures. She never gave up on her attempts to secure justice for Nikki. Now the murderer has been convicted, she wants answers and a full inquiry into the historic failures by Northumbria Police.”
ENDS