UK: Tobin in hospital after prison attack

The man charged with murdering schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton remained in hospital today after a jail attack which caused him to miss a court appearance.

Peter Tobin (aged 61), needed medical treatment following the assault at 7pm yesterday. The extent of his injuries is not known.

He had been due to make a second appearance today at Linlithgow Sheriff Court, where he was charged with the schoolgirl’s murder in private last Thursday.

However, the hearing was cancelled and Tobin was not discharged from Edinburgh Royal Infirmary as scheduled.

He was not expected to return to Saughton Prison in Edinburgh today.

Vicky’s body was discovered at Tobin’s former home in Margate, Kent, last Monday, 16 years after she disappeared.

Her father, Michael, had been at the court ahead of Tobin’s expected appearance.

He revealed that he had declined to have Vicky’s body returned to the family in three weeks’ time and was prepared to wait until the New Year to bury his daughter.

Mr Hamilton said: “I don’t want to have to spend all my Christmases thinking that I buried my daughter at Christmas or just before, so we’ve asked the CID if we can hold it back until after Christmas and New Year.”

Vicky, from Redding, near Falkirk, vanished while waiting for a bus home in February 1991.

Her remains were found at 50 Irvine Drive in Margate on November 12.

She will be buried at a cemetery in Polmont, near Falkirk, her father said, and he would one day be laid to rest alongside her.

Asked about the discovery of his missing daughter’s body, he said: “As I said all the years past, I knew she was dead, but I knew it was going to be a shock when I got told and it was a shock actually knowing where she had been lying.”

Mr Hamilton was accompanied at court by several family members, including wife Christine and brother Eric.

Security had been tightened following Tobin’s appearance last week, when there were rowdy scenes involving members of the public as the prison van carrying Tobin arrived and left.

Under sheriff’s orders, no public were allowed to enter the road at the side of the court building.

Eight police officers formed a line across the street and metal sheeting blocked the view of the back door of the court.

Around 50 members of the press and public stood in the street opposite the court awaiting Tobin’s arrival.

At noon a police spokesman said he would not appear.

A Crown Office spokeswoman later confirmed: “Peter Tobin will not be appearing at court today and we will not be in a position to say whether he’ll appear on Friday until tomorrow morning.”

The attack happened at Saughton jail, where Tobin was housed along with other vulnerable inmates in the prison’s protection wing.

A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said: “A prisoner was subject to an assault and has been taken for medical treatment.

“An investigation into the incident is under way.”

The remains of a second missing teenager, Dinah McNicol, from Tillingham, Essex, were discovered last Friday at the Margate property.

The 18-year-old vanished after attending a music festival in Liphook, Hampshire, the same year that Vicky disappeared.

It is believed she disappeared after hitch-hiking home with a man she met there. Police are expected to step down their investigations at Irvine Drive tomorrow. Detectives said the focus is now on gathering evidence as no more significant finds are expected.

Local council chiefs are to consult the community and the victims’ families before deciding whether the house should be demolished.

Former resident Colin Bone, 45, said he is worried that he might have destroyed evidence when he removed a mound of mud and bricks from the garden and built a patio after moving into the house in late 1994.

“I levelled the garden, including both areas where the bodies were found, and removed dirt,” he told the Sun newspaper.

“There’s a possibility there could have been evidence.”