Tobin Investigation Continues

27 January 2011, 10:31 | Updated: 10 February 2011, 14:15

Police have identified seven women who were raped by serial killer Peter Tobin.

Tobin is serving three life sentences for the murders of schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton, 15, 18-year-old Dinah McNicol and 23-year-old Angelika Kluk.

The women were identified following an appeal for information in July.

Giving an update during a new appeal on tv last night, Det Supt David Swindle, who is from Strathclyde Police and is leading the UK-wide investigation into Tobin's past, said:

 "Since that last appeal we've identified seven women that have been raped by Peter Tobin and we've followed up thousands of lines of inquiry including the commencement of the excavations in Brighton and Hampshire.

"Unfortunately, we never found anything at these, but the search for the truth regarding what Tobin has done continues."

More than 700 people called in with information on Tobin following the last Crimewatch appeal on the killer's past in July last year.

Mr Swindle also said he wanted to find three people who had met Tobin in the past including a married couple who were the only official witnesses to Tobin's first marriage in Brighton in 1969 to Margaret Robertson, who was 18 at the time.

He said he wanted to speak to a Mr and Mrs Hardy, who lived in St Michael's Place in Brighton at the time. Tobin was 22 when he first married.

Mr Swindle said he also wanted to find another man called Paul.

He said:

 "We are appealing for two people who were witnesses to his first marriage to Margaret in 1969 in Brighton and a third person is a male called Paul who we know Tobin was very, very friendly with, he's possibly called Paul Maguire. He lived at the same place that Tobin worked at the seafront hotel in Brighton.

"They were very friendly. He was linked in to the biker scene and this guy Paul spoke about the French Foreign Legion. He's a close friend of Tobin."

It is thought Tobin worked with Paul in Brighton in the mid 1980s.

Police set up Operation Anagram after the rape and murder of Polish student Ms Kluk at a Glasgow church in 2006.

They followed a trail to the garden of Tobin's former home in Margate, Kent, where they unearthed the bodies of Ms McNicol and Vicky two years later.

Detectives are still piecing together information on his whereabouts over the years to establish whether he can be linked to or ruled out of other crimes.

Last year searches were carried out by police at properties in Brighton, East Sussex, which did not disclose anything suspicious.

Officers in Sussex ruled out any crimes linked to the serial killer at a seaside property where he used to live.

Search teams and forensic archaeologists spent 15 days excavating a large rear garden and forensically examining the basement areas of the house in Brighton.

In October a garage in Broadmere Avenue, Havant, Hampshire, once rented to Tobin was dug up by police hunting for any further victims. Nothing suspicious was found.

In July Tobin was also questioned by police in Edinburgh in relation to his suspected involvement in "serious sexual crimes".

Mr Swindle, speaking later, said: "We've got a lot of information, a lot of information, particularly about Paul.

"The marriage certificate, we have some information. We haven't traced the people that are on that but we have traced other people who have got information about Peter Tobin including victims."