Vicky Hamilton murder: Timeline of key events

Published on Tuesday 2 December 2008 16:31

HERE is a timeline of events surrounding the investigation into the disappearance of schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton.

1991

• February 10: Vicky Hamilton, 15, disappears. She is last seen at a bus stop in Bathgate waiting for a bus to take her home to Redding, near Falkirk in Scotland.

1993

• Vicky's mother Janette dies, going to the grave without knowing what had happened to her daughter.

1994

• May: Peter Tobin pleads guilty at Winchester Crown Court to a double sex attack on two 14-year-old schoolgirls. After plying the girls with drink and drugs he brutally raped one and indecently assaulted the other. He was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.

2004

• Tobin is released from prison and moves into a flat in Paisley, Scotland.

2005

• October: Tobin goes on the run following an alleged incident involving a young woman. When officers attempt to question the registered sex offender, they find he has disappeared from his home.

2006

• September 24: Polish student Angelika Kluk, 23, last seen at St Patrick's Church in Anderston, Glasgow.

• September 28: Police release a picture of a man known as Pat McLaughlin, an odd-job man who is thought to be the last person to have seen Angelika. They later confirm that McLaughlin is an alias used by Peter Tobin, a registered sex offender.

• September 30: The body of Angelika Kluk is found under the floor of St Patrick's Church.

• October 1: Tobin is arrested in London.

• October 7: Tobin is formally charged with the murder of the Polish student.

• November 15: Detectives investigating the disappearance of Vicky Hamilton reveal that they are now conducting a murder inquiry – and are hoping for a breakthrough using DNA testing.

Vicky's disappearance had, until then, been treated as a missing person's inquiry, but police intend to review the whole case as they begin their murder probe.

2007

• May 4: After a six-week trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, Tobin is found guilty of the rape and murder of Angelika Kluk.

• May 22: It emerges that the former home of Angelika Kluk's killer Peter Tobin is to be searched by detectives probing the disappearance of Vicky Hamilton.

• June 4: Police begin searching Tobin's former home in Robertson Avenue, Bathgate. It is only about a mile away from the town centre, where Vicky was last seen eating a bag of chips.

• June 28: The house is returned to its owners.

• July 21: Tobin is arrested and charged in connection with the disappearance of Vicky Hamilton.

• July 25: He is taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary after suffering a heart attack.

• October 3: Police began searching a house in Victoria Road North in the Southsea area of Portsmouth, Hampshire, in connection with the investigation into Vicky Hamilton's disappearance.

• October 10: The search of the house in Portsmouth ends. Police refused to say if anything was discovered in the search.

• November 12: Police begin a search of Tobin's former house in Margate, Kent.

• November 13: The remains of a woman are found buried in the back garden of the house.

• November 14: Police confirm that the body is that of Vicky Hamilton.

• November 15: Tobin is formally charged at Linlithgow Sheriff Court with the murder of Vicky Hamilton.

• November 22: Tobin in hospital after being attacked in Edinburgh's Saughton prison the previous evening.

• November 30: Vicky Hamilton is laid to rest at New Grandsable Cemetery near Falkirk.

2008

• September 1: Peter Tobin pleads not guilty to abducting and murdering Vicky Hamilton when he appears at the High Court in Edinburgh.

• November 3: Tobin goes on trial at the High Court in Dundee.

• December 3: Tobin found guilty of Vicky's murder after a three week trial.