Killer Tobin quizzed over 60s sex offences

Published on Thursday 29 July 2010 18:44

SERIAL killer Peter Tobin is being investigated over a number of serious sexual crimes after being questioned for several hours by police in Scotland.

•Peter Tobin: No new charges, but investigation goes on

Detectives from Strathclyde took the 63-year-old from Saughton Prison to St Leonard's Police Station, in Edinburgh, on Wednesday, for questioning about new allegations of rapes and sexual assaults.

However, these did not include the "Bible John" murders of Patricia Docker, 25, Jemima McDonald, 32, and Helen Puttock, 29, in Glasgow, in the late 1960s, which have previously been linked to Tobin.

He was interviewed for most of the day about a number of sexual offences in Scotland, predominantly from the 1960s, and later about the broader Operation Anagram UK-wide investigation into his entire life.

Police have informed the Crown Office, and will continue to investigate, but at the moment, Tobin does not face new charges.

Since an appeal on Crimewatch, followed by unsuccessful searches of two gardens in Brighton, the publicity generated has prompted a number of women have come forward saying they were raped or sexually assaulted by Tobin in Scotland.

Detective Superintendent David Swindle, of Strathclyde Police, said: "Inquiries are on-going. There is the possibility that at some point in the future he could be brought back before the courts,

"There was dialogue, but he has not assisted us with our inquiries."

He added: "While a lot of the focus has been on Brighton, it has been business as usual for Operation Anagram. We may never know everything that he has done, but we will fight really hard to find out.

"We received 400 calls on the back of the Crimewatch programme, with a number of women coming forward say they had been raped or sexually assaulted by Peter Tobin."

An officer from Sussex Police was present throughout during the St Leonard's interviews and, after discussing the allegations of serious sexual crimes in Scotland, inquiries progressed to Tobin's years in Brighton and links to other murders and missing persons from across the UK.

Tobin has been convicted of the murders of Angelika Kluk, 23, Vicky Hamilton, 15, and Dinah McNicol, 18, and will serve the rest of his life in prison.

However, police are convinced he has committed more crimes and since the murder of Ms Kluk, in Glasgow, in 2006, they have spent four years trying to piece together the chronology of his life.

It was this Operation Anagram that led them to homes in Station Road and Marine Parade, in Brighton, where he lived in the 1980s.

Police and specially trained forensic archaeologists spent more than two weeks digging up the gardens and searching the properties, but did not find any bodies or anything to link him to further crimes.