On 7 October 1992, Nikki Allan, a seven-year-old English girl, was murdered by David Boyd who "beat her about the head with a brick" shattering her skull and stabbed her multiple times, inside the derelict Old Exchange Building in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England.

Boyd was found guilty of Allan's murder in 2023 and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 29 years.

[4] The following day, Allan's shoes and coat were spotted outside the nearby derelict Quayside Old Exchange building in High Street East, Sunderland.

[5][4] Her body was found inside the basement of the building with 37 stab wounds and her head had been bludgeoned by a brick.

[8] In February 2014, imprisoned serial killer Steven Grieveson was arrested on suspicion of Allan's murder.

[10] On 17 April 2018, Northumbria Police raided a house in the Stockton area of Teesside and arrested a man on suspicion of Allan's murder.

[1] The prosecution alleged that he had lured Allan to some wasteland next to the River Wear, where she was struck in the head, causing her to bleed.

[1] The prosecution then said that the man had then forced Allan through an opening in a boarded up window of the derelict Old Exchange building.

[1] A post-mortem examination revealed that Allan had suffered "blunt force trauma" to the head which was believed to have knocked her unconscious before she was stabbed.

[14] The case was described as "circumstantial but compelling" due to the fact that Boyd's DNA had been found on Allan's clothing.

[1] Boyd suggested to police that the DNA may have been there because she had wiped her hands in his saliva and had smeared it onto her clothes after he had spat off his balcony that night and that it may have hit Allan.

[1] It was also reported that Boyd "knew the layout" of the Old Exchange building and that he had used the same window a few days before when he took a boy there to search for pigeons.

[1] Boyd had misled police about his whereabouts on the night of the murder, claiming he had gone to the fish and chip shop an hour before he actually had, and was said to physically resemble the sketch of the man eyewitnesses had seen walking with Nikki Allan.

[15] David Boyd had been convicted in March 2000 of indecent assault of a young girl at a park in Stockton that took place on 8 April 1999.

[16] Boyd had also been convicted of breaching the peace in 1986 in which he had approached four children in Sacriston, County Durham and grabbed a ten-year-old girl.