Vicky murder trial jury shown images of girl's body cut in two

Published on Monday 17 November 2008 19:02

COMPUTER-GENERATED images of a bisected body were yesterday shown to the jury in the Vicky Hamilton murder trial.

The graphics were said to be an accurate representation of what had been removed from two plastic bags found during excavation of a garden in Kent.

The body had been divided at about waist level. On the clothed upper part, the arms were bent at the elbows with the hands in front of the face.

On the naked lower part, the legs were bent at the knees with the feet tucked under the buttocks.

Peter Tobin, 62, denies abducting Vicky, 15, on 10 February, 1991 and taking her to his then home in Bathgate, West Lothian. It is alleged he drugged her, sexually assaulted and killed her.

He also denies concealing her body, bisecting it and transporting and burying the parts. The jury has been told that Tobin gave up the Bathgate tenancy in March 1991, and rented a mid-terrace house in Margate, Kent, for the rest of that year.

Lucy Sibun, 36, a forensic archaeologist, said that in November last year, she took part in an excavation of the rear garden of the Margate house after an "anomaly" had been picked up by ground-penetrating radar.

Two black plastic bags were found at a depth of about 3ft, under a layer of a sand and cement mix.

It was not possible to say when the "grave", roughly 3ft by 2ft, had been dug, but Mrs Sibun told the court: "The nature and regular shape suggested it was not excavated in a hurry."

If one person had dug the grave, she estimated that it would have taken about an hour or two.

Mrs Sibun agreed with the defence counsel, Donald Findlay, QC, that the digging, placing of the bags and refilling of the hole had not been a minor operation.

The High Court in Dundee also heard Tobin had been admitted unconscious to hospital after taking an overdose of tranquillisers in April 1990, about a year before Vicky disappeared, and would have taken "a not insignificant period of time."

The trial continues.