Murder accused has convictions for murder and sex attacks on teens

A MAN accused of murdering a teenager in 1991 has convictions for the murder of another young woman and sex attacks on two schoolgirls, a court heard yesterday.

Peter Tobin, 62, went on trial yesterday accused of murdering 18-year-old Dinah McNicol as she returned home from a music festival in Liphook, Hampshire, in Britain in August 1991.

He denies murder.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard McNicol 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 Tobin in Irvine Drive, Margate, Kent.

There they found the bodies of McNicol and another victim, the jury heard. 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.

The jury was shown a computer graphic of how her body was found in the back garden. It showed her ankles by her head and how her body had been wrapped in bin sacks.

The court heard that her abduction and death bore striking similarities to three other attacks 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.

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 cut her body in half and transported it to Margate where he buried the body.

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 added that the case of Hamilton bore a striking resemblance to the murder of McNicol.

He said: “The prosecution submit this conviction is highly probative because the evidence in this case demonstrates a propensity to abduct young girls, murder them and bury their bodies in rubbish sacks.

“There cannot be many people in the world who share this propensity. It is clear the defendant’s motives for these attacks were sexual.”

Clegg said there was evidence Tobin had picked up McNicol 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 in a car accident.

The jury was told the cause of McNicol’s death was not known for definite, but that a postmortem examination had found her injuries were consistent with having been strangled with a ligature.