Relief for family as Peter Tobin drops appeal over Vicky Hamilton's murder

Tobin, 63, who is serving life for murdering three young women, had been set to challenging his minimum 30-year term for killing the teenager from Redding, near Falkirk.

Vicky, 15, was abducted in Bathgate, West Lothian, in 1991. Her remains were found 17 years later buried in the garden of one of Tobin's former homes, in Margate, Kent.

Judge Lord Emslie branded Tobin "unfit to live in a decent society" following his conviction for Vicky's murder at the High Court in Dundee in December 2008.

A court hearing as part of Tobin's appeal against the sentence he received for murdering Vicky had been due to take place on Friday this week at the High Court in Edinburgh.

But yesterday, the Scottish Court Service confirmed a "minute of abandonment" had been received and the appeal would not continue.

The minute would have been submitted by Tobin's counsel on his behalf.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Court Service said: "A minute of abandonment has been received by the court in Peter Tobin's appeal against his sentence for the murder of Vicky Hamilton.

"A hearing scheduled for later this week has now been withdrawn as a result."

In August, Vicky's father, Michael, and Ian McNicol, whose 18-year-old daughter Dinah was also murdered by Tobin, called for the killer to be denied the right to a court appeal.

The call was made after Tobin twice failed to turn up at the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh through illness.

Mr Hamilton said at the time of the cases that it was "ridiculous" taxpayers' money was being spent on the appeal when the killer would spend the rest of his days in jail.

Tobin is serving another two life sentences for the murders of Polish student Angelika Kluk and Miss McNicol.

Miss Kluk, 23, was raped and murdered by Tobin at a Glasgow church in September 2006.

Police had searched for Tobin, who worked at the church under the alias Pat McLaughlin, in connection with her disappearance.

The young woman's body was found hidden under the floor of the church

Miss McNicol vanished in August 1991 while hitchhiking to her home in Tillingham, Essex, after leaving a music festival in Liphook, Hampshire.

Her remains were found alongside those of Vicky in the garden in Margate.

Like Vicky, the 18-year-old had been drugged and strangled.

Mr Hamilton, 60, said yesterday that he welcomed Tobin's decision to drop the appeal.

He said it would help the families of the victims to close another page in their ordeal following the deaths of their loved ones.

"At the end of the day, he killed three women, three people," he said.

"Why should he have the right to appeal?

"Officials keep telling me it's his right.

My daughter did not have any rights.

"The news this morning is absolutely brilliant.

"It's another page of the book closed."