A SCHOOLGIRL was seen "skipping to her death" before her skull was shattered and she was repeatedly stabbed in the heart, a court heard.
Nikki Allan, seven, was allegedly lured from her home in Sunderland by David Boyd, who forced her into a derelict building on October 7, 1992.
Once inside, the 55-year-old, whose partner was Nikki's babysitter, bludgeoned the youngster with a brick and stabbed her repeatedly in the heart, jurors heard.
Boyd then allegedly dragged Nikki downstairs "into the blackness of the basement" before dumping her tiny body in a darkened corner where she was discovered the following day.
The schoolgirl's killing led to a 30-year mystery that saw innocent man George Heron stand trial for murder.
But thanks to advances in science, police found Boyd's DNA on Nikki's clothing in multiple areas, it was said.
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Newcastle Crown Court heard how a final sighting of Nikki showed her "unwittingly skipping to her death" with a man.
Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, said the evidence suggests she was "not abducted" but instead "lured away by her killer".
He also told the court Boyd was the last man to see her alive on the night she died.
Opening the case today, Mr Wright said: "Over thirty years ago, on the night of the 7th October 1992, a little girl called Nikki Allan was lured away from the block of flats in which she lived and down towards the River Wear in Sunderland.
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"The man who led her away took her into an area of wasteland behind a disused building. There he struck her at least one blow that caused her to bleed.
"He then forced her through an opening in a boarded up window into the derelict building. It was the only point of access to that building and this man plainly knew that building well and knew exactly where and how to get into it.
"Inside the building the man who took her there beat Nikki Allan about the head with a brick. He shattered her skull.
"He then used a knife to stab her repeatedly through her chest, the knife being driven in and out of her body many times through the same hole. Into her heart, into her lungs, making sure of the job of killing her.
"Nikki Allan was seven years old."
The court was told "only the killer knows why he did what he did to Nikki" but it could be "something occurred in the grounds of that derelict building that caused her to scream and for the killer to assault her".
Mr Wright added: "One distinct possibility is that her brutal death was not what had been intended at the outset, but was instead brought about by her ability to identify the person who had taken her there and had hurt her outside the building."
Jurors heard that Boyd, who was previously called David Smith or David Bell, was "well known to Nikki's family" at the time and that his girlfriend was her regular babysitter.
He was 25 years old and lived in the same block of flats as Nikki and knew the building where she was killed "very well", it was said.
A few days before the murder, he took a 12-year-old boy there to look at pigeons, using the same window used by the killer.
Jurors heard he took advantage in 1992 of police focusing on the wrong man to craft a false alibi – and even provided a statement at Mr Heron's trial.
Mr Wright added: "He was, by his own admission, the last man to see her alive that night having her in his sight until the moments before she was lured away.
"He was by his own admission out of his flat alone at the time that she went missing.
"He closely resembles the description of the man who killed Nikki."
Boyd, of Chesterton Court, Norton, denies murder.
The trial continues.
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