Police search for more Tobin murder victims

Sky News

Police are searching two new sites in Brighton for more victims of the serial killer Peter Tobin.

Specialist search teams have arrived at addresses where the triple murderer lived during the late 1980s.

Officers have been using ground-penetrating radar to find out if any bodies or evidence are buried at the homes.

The searches - at 152 Marine Parade and two beauty shops with a flat above at 67 Station Road, Portslade - are part of a nationwide inquiry into whether Tobin is responsible for any more murders.

Tobin, 63, was told in December he would die in jail after being convicted of strangling 18-year-old Dinah McNicol.

The former church handyman was already serving life sentences for the murders of 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton and Angelika Kluk, 23.

Sky News' Paul Harrison said the searches have come after police received information dating back to the 70s, 80s and 90s.

He said that while residents were aware of the link to Tobin's past, police only told them about the dig this morning.

Harrison added: "In the past three years or so Peter Tobin has been going through some lengthy trials.

"He was convicted of three murders - while all that was going on it was difficult for there to be public police activity.

"What we understand is that the police have now reached a threshold of information they believe warrants a search of these two properties."

Tobin lived in Brighton for 20 years from the late 1960s, including in an eight-bedroom house with a patio garden in Dyke Road - but no other addresses are being searched.

Police have said it would be "insensitve" to comment on whether the development is linked to the deaths of schoolgirls Karen Hadaway, 10, and Nicola Fellows, nine, in October 1986.

The case became known as the Babes in the Woods killings after they were found strangled in Wild Park, Brighton.