David Boyd, of Stockton, denies Nikki's murder in Sunderland, in 1992

David Thomas Boyd, now 55, of Chesterton Court, Norton, in Stockton, denies the charge of murder of the seven-year-old schoolgirl, whose body was found in a disused trade building, not far from where she lived, off High Street East, in Sunderland, in October 1992.

The prosecution in the case at Newcastle Crown Court said he knew Nikki, as his girlfriend babysat for her mother, lived near to her family and he was familiar with the lay-out of the derelict building where she was found dead.

Boyd has maintained his denials to her murder in a number of interviews since he was arrested in 2018.

Read more: Nikki Allan: Stockton man lacks 'courage' to give evidence

But he chose not to give evidence in his trial, relying on what he told police in those interviews.

The prosecution alleged that Boyd, who lived on the same Wear Garth flat complex in Sunderland’s East End as Nikki’s family at the time, lured her away as she sat on a wall waiting for her mother leaving the Boar’s Head pub, on High Street East, at some-time after 9.43pm on October 7, 1992.

Shortly before 10pm a woman waiting to pick up her mother from her shift at the nearby MacFish factory, on Low Street, saw a male walking with a little girl skipping, apparently happily, behind him.

Grainy cctv footage from the next-door Rose Line building featured what appeared to be a male figure walking along Low Street, with a much smaller person just behind.

A staff member leaving MacFish, walking with colleagues for a bus on High Street East, heard two sounds, seconds apart, like a piece of wood breaking, followed by a “wailing” noise from the disused Old Exchange Building.

The jury was also told a woman living opposite the Old Exchange heard, “a short-lived, but piercing scream from a girl, followed by a second smaller scream a couple of minutes later”, both apparently coming from the building.

When Nikki was reported missing, later that night, Boyd was back at his flat in Wear Garth and recalled people going to search for the little girl.

But he was to tell police later that he was told not to join the search as he should, “get his head down”, to go to bed as he had community service work to complete the following morning.

It was on his return from that community work session the following day that he said he was told Nikki’s body had been found by searchers, in the Old Exchange Building.

Boyd told police he had been in the derelict building with a local boy looking for wood to build him a pigeon cree, days earlier, and had used the same gap in a boarded up rear window to gain entry that investigators believed Nikki’s killer used on the night she disappeared.

Police re-opened the inquiry by 2017 and took samples from people involved in the original investigation.

Read more: David Boyd 'will not give evidence in defence' in Nikki Allan trial

In interviews following his arrest after the re-investigation in 2018 and 2019, Boyd, who was never a suspect in the original inquiry, denied involvement in the murder.

He said at the time he had run an errand to buy fish and chips for a neighbour, although he said this was an hour later, at about 9.30pm, compared to the time of 8.30pm he told the police in the original inquiry.

Read next:

* Man accused of murdering Nikki Allan ‘admits fantasies of young girls'

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

* Video shows moment Nikki Allan Sunderland murder accused is arrested

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Following her summing up of the evidence in the case today, the twelfth day of the trial, the judge, Mrs Justice Christina Lambert, sent the jury out to begin its deliberations at 12-noon.

She told them they were under, “no pressure of time”, but said they must strive to reach a unanimous verdict on which all 12 of them agree.

Proceeding.