Teenager's 'murderer' is convicted killer
- 00:01:26
- ITN
Teenager's 'murderer' is convicted killer
The trial of a man accused of raping and murdering a teenager is set to resume. Peter Tobin, 62, is accused of killing Dinah McNicol, 18, of Tillingham, Essex, who disappeared after attending a music festival in Liphook, Hampshire, in the summer of 1991. Jurors at Chelmsford Crown Court were told that her remains were discovered in Kent in 2007. The court heard the A-level student was picked up as she tried to hitch a lift along the A3 towards London. The last time she was seen alive was when her male companion was dropped off at Junction 8 of the M25. Her body was discovered in November 2007 when detectives re-opened the case and began a forensic examination of a house previously lived in by Peter Tobin, now 62, who had lived at Irvine Drive, Margate, Kent. The bodies of Miss McNicol and another victim were found there, the jury heard. Miss McNicol's decomposed body was found in a shallow grave in the back garden. Her ankles and wrists had been tied together with the headscarf and leggings she was wearing when she vanished. Tobin, from Johnstone, Renfrewshire, denies murdering Miss McNicol between August 1991 and January 1992. The court heard that Miss McNicol's abduction and death bore striking similarities to three other attacks which Tobin has been convicted of. Prosecutor William Clegg, QC, said Tobin was convicted in 2004 of raping and assaulting a 14-year-old girl and sexually attacking another young girl. He was also convicted of murdering 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton. Miss Hamilton had suffered a sexual attack at the hands of Tobin after she was abducted in Bathgate, near Edinburgh in February 1991. The court heard that after he murdered her, he transported her body to Margate and buried it. Mr Clegg said there was evidence Tobin had picked up Miss McNicol - who lived with her father Ian as her mother had died in a road accident some years earlier - in his car, abducted and killed her, then "cleaned out" more than £2,000 from her bank account. The money had been compensation paid to her on her 18th birthday following the death of her mother. Mr Clegg said that in each case Tobin had used a drug called anatryptaline which makes its victims more compliant by making them feel drowsy and dizzy. He said Miss McNicol was a pupil at Chelmsford County High School in Chelmsford, Essex, and was awaiting her A-level results when she disappeared. She never learned that she had passed four of them. Miss McNicol's father Ian and stepsister Laura Hollands were in court for the start of the trial - which is expected to last at least two weeks. Mr McNicol gazed intently at the dock where Tobin, dressed in a pale purple jumper was sitting as the prosecution evidence was outlined.
ITN | June 24, 2009
