Tobin police draw blank after 15 days of searching

Published on Wednesday 28 July 2010 17:57

POLICE have failed to uncover new victims of serial killer Peter Tobin following a 15-day search of two homes and gardens in Brighton.

Detectives were this morning expected to inform relatives that nothing had been found linking him to other killings.

They have been tight-lipped about the intelligence that led them to Station Road, in Port-slade, and Marine Parade - two of several places in Brighton where Tobin, now 63, lived in the 1980s.

As well as digging up the gardens and searching his former homes, they have dug up wells, excavated cellars and checked wall cavities in the hope of connecting him to other crimes.

Tobin has been linked to the disappearances of Louise Kay, 18, and Jessica Earl, 22, from nearby Eastbourne, and the "Babes in the Woods" murders of nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in Brighton.

Michael Hamilton, 60, of Falkirk, whose teenage daughter Vicky disappeared from Bathgate in 1991 and was found buried in the back garden of another of Tobin's former homes, in Margate, Kent, in 2007, said his heart went out to those families still waiting and wondering. He said: "They will be doing what we did - hoping and praying. We never gave up hope, and they shouldn't either. But it's hard when it goes on for so many years.

"We lived through it. That's all they can really do, live through it and hope that some day they can put to rest the loved ones that are missing."

Mr Hamilton added: "I don't know what the police plan to do now.

"It's finished for us now. But I hope they discover everything that he's done. What that guy's done in his life is unforgivable."

Operation Anagram, which was launched to trace Tobin's life and movements after he was found guilty of the murder of Angelika Kluk, 23, in Glasgow in 2006, will continue.

It has been boosted by calls to police off the back of publicity generated from the Brighton searches, which will be sifted through over the coming days.

A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said: "We have had a fantastic response from members of the public.

"We still want people to contact us with information. We are fulfilling his timeline, and that work is still ongoing.

"We have had a substantial amount of calls as a result of these two searches, but we do not have any plans to search any other properties in Brighton and Hove at the moment."

As well as Ms Kluk and Miss Hamilton, Tobin has been convicted of the murder of Dinah McNicol, 18, a hitchhiker who was also found buried in the garden in Margate. He will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Criminologist David Wilson believes Tobin is the real "Bible John" - the mysterious serial killer who murdered Patricia Docker, 25, Jemima McDonald, 32, and Helen Puttock, 29, in Glasgow in the late 1960s.