Video shows moment Nikki Allan Sunderland murder accused is arrested

David Boyd, then 25, lived in the same Wear Garth tenement building, off High Street East, in Sunderland’s East End, as the family of the seven-year-old girl at the time of her death in October 1992.

Newcastle Crown Court was told that he knew her family as his then-partner often babysat for Nikki's mother.

The trial jury heard that Boyd told police, in a witness statement given days after her death, that on the night she went missing he had seen Nikki from the balcony outside his third-floor flat.

Read more: Nikki Allan: Jurors see photos and sketches of suspect David Boyd

She was playing with two friends below, within the Wear Garth quadrangle, at about 9.30pm that night, but he said he did not know where she then went.

In a police interview after his arrest, in April, 2018, following a re-examination of the evidence in the still-unsolved case, he said he thought it may have been closer to 8.30pm when he saw Nikki playing, before he ran an errand to buy a neighbour some fish and chips.

Nikki’s badly beaten and stabbed body was found by some of the many local people searching for her, at about 9am the following morning.

She had been dumped in a basement room of the long-disused Old Exchange building, further down High Street East from Wear Garth.

Asked about the building, Boyd told police he had been in there with a 12-year-old local boy, either a week, or just a few days, earlier.

He said at the time they were looking for pigeons, but in his interview after his 2018 arrest, he said he believed it may have been for wood to help the boy build a pigeon cree on the balcony outside his flat.

Asked how he gained access to the Old Exchange, he said it was via a gap in a boarded-up window at the back of the derelict building, off Low Street.

It was the same point of access, the only entry point, that police believe the killer used days later.

Boyd said he and the boy left empty-handed, having failed to find any loose pieces of wood.

Read more: Nikki Allan: Jury in David Boyd murder trial told how body was found

The jury in the trial was told that after the reopening of the investigation, Boyd was asked to provide a sample of DNA in 2017, to be analysed using newer techniques available to forensic scientists than at the time of her death.

Expert analysis of his sample revealed a match with up to four areas of the clothing worn by Nikki on the night of her death.

The jury was then shown police bodycame video footage of the moments when Boyd was arrested, on April 17, 2018.

Boyd, who had never been treated as a suspect at the time of Nikki’s death, was told he was suspected of having involvement in her killing.

He replied: “I’ve had no involvement in that, like."

As he was being put in handcuffs he asked which police station he would be taken to and if arrangements could be made to look after his dog.

Later, he asked the two officers: “What evidence have you got, anyway?”

Read next:

* LIVE: Man stands trial for murder of Sunderland schoolgirl Nikki Allan

* Dad of Nikki Allan searched all night for murdered girl

* Nikki Allan LIVE: Murder trial continues in death of seven-year-old

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He was not told at the time of his arrest about the DNA evidence find but did give his account of his knowledge of the building during his initial police interviews.

Boyd, now 55, of Chesterton Court, Norton, Stockton, denies the murder of Nikki.

The trial continues tomorrow (Thursday May 2).