Serial killer Peter Tobin disfigured in jail attack

SERIAL killer Peter Tobin was left permanently disfigured by a fellow inmate who slashed his throat with a razor blade fitted with a handle.

Peter Tobin was attacked in Saughton Prison. Pic: Ian Rutherford

His attacker, 31-year-old, Sean Moynihan, told prison officers: “Tobin has been annoying me for months with his attitude towards his offences and his refusal to tell anyone where the rest of his victims’ bodies are”.

Moynihan, now an inmate at Glenochil Prison, pled guilty at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today to assaulting 69-year-old Tobin on July 1 this year by repeatedly striking him on the head and body with the blade.

Fiscal Depute, Kirsty Anderson, told Sheriff Nigel Ross: “At 12.25 pm Mr Tobin was in his cell. He woke up to see Mr Moynihan standing over him, slashing him on the face with something sharp. Mr Tobin grabbed his arm and struggled with the accused. Mr Moynihan left the cell and Mr Tobin rang the cell alarm”.

A prison officer saw Moynihan with blood on his right arm. He was found to have a razor with a handle in his pocket and he told the officer: “I slashed Tobin across the throat and face”.

When he was later interviewed and asked why he had carried out the attack, he replied: “I am never getting out. Tobin has been annoying me for months with his attitude towards his offences and his refusal to tell anyone where the rest of the victims’ bodies are”.

Tobin was treated at St John’s Hospital in Livingston where he was found to have a 20 centimetre laceration running down the right side of his face and onto his throat. Sheriff Ross was told he would permanently scarred.

Defence solicitor, Charlie McCusker, told the court that prior to the attack, Moynihan had been “doing well” on licence, but had been recalled on another matter. “Clearly his position was one of great despondency, feeling he was going to be inside for a long time. He was very frustrated”. His client, he added, had fully co-operated with the prison staff and had pled guilty at the earliest opportunity.

Moynihan is due to appear at the High Court in Glasgow tomorrow. Sheriff Ross deferred sentence on him until October 22 to see what the outcome of that would be.

Tobin is serving life sentences for the murders of 15-year old Vicky Hamilton from Falkirk in 1991. Her body was found in 2007 buried in the garden of a house in Margate and 23-year old Angelika Kluk, a Polish student, whom he buried under the floor of St Patrick’s RC Church in Glasgow in 2006.