Peter Tobin treated in hospital after a suspected heart attack

Tobin, 65, serving three life sentences for the murders of Vicky Hamilton, Angelika Kluk and Dinah McNicol, became ill at Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison on Thursday afternoon.

The killer, who had a history of missing court through illness, was reportedly taken to the city’s Royal Infirmary by an ambulance under police escort.

He suffered chest pains on Thursday afternoon and collapsed, unable to breathe.

It is understood he will be returned to prison today.

Tobin is certain to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

The serial killer is serving a life sentence for raping and murdering Polish student Angelika, 23, and hiding her body under the floor of a Glasgow church in 2006.

He has also been convicted of murdering 15-year-old schoolgirl Vicky, of Redding, near Falkirk, in 1991, and 18-year-old Dinah in the same year.

Their bodies were found 17 years later, buried in the garden of his former home in Margate, Kent.

Police have also examined hundreds of other unsolved murder cases to see if they could be linked to the killer.

After discovering Miss Kluk’s body under church floorboards in Glasgow in 2006, police launched Operation Anagram, a UK-wide investigation into Tobin’s nomadic life, during which he used several aliases, owned more than 120 cars and lived in many different parts of the country.

Operation Anagram involved eight UK police forces and generated about 6,000 lines of inquiry and more than 3,000 documents.

Tobin had been linked to the unsolved “Bible John” murders of Patricia Docker, 25, Jemima McDonald, 32, and Helen Puttock, 29, in Glasgow in the late 1960s, as well as disappearances from Norfolk, where he used to go on holiday, and London.

Patricia Docker, the first of Bible John’s victims, was 25 when she was last seen alive leaving the Majestic ballroom in 1968.

The following morning the nurse was discovered lying strangled in a doorway in a lane in Langside, on the south side of Glasgow.

The body of Jemima McDonald was discovered on 16 August, 1969, after the 32-year-old went dancing on a night out at the Barrowland Ballroom. She had been strangled with her stockings. She had left the club at midnight with a young man described as tall and slim, with red hair.

The body of 29-year-old Helen Puttock was found 77 days after that of Jemima McDonald. She had been to the Barrowland Ballroom the night before with her sister, Jean Langford, where they met Bible John. Jean got out in the Scotstoun area and the taxi continued to Earl Street, where Helen lived. Her body was found early the next day. She had been strangled.

The Operation Anagram enquiry team also investigated the unsolved cases of Louise Kay, 18, and Jessica Earl, 22, who disappeared from Eastbourne, in Sussex, in the late 1980s, and the the “Babes in the Woods” murders of nine-year-old friends Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, which took place in Brighton.

Police decided to search Tobin’s former homes in Portslade and Marine Parade after receiving information from the public. The massive investigation was wound down in June last year. Detective Superintendent David Swindle, who led the inquiry, admitted that after four-and-a -half years tracing Tobin’s entire life he had exhausted all lines of inquiry but there was no evidence to pursue.