Police identify seven women raped by serial killer Peter Tobin

POLICE have identified seven women who were raped by serial killer Peter Tobin, it emerged last night.

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

Tobin was also questioned that same month for over ten hours by police after being taken from HMP Edinburgh to St Leonard's police station in the city in relation to his suspected involvement in "serious sexual crimes".

Giving an update during a fresh appeal on Crimewatch on BBC One last night, Detective Superintendent David Swindle, from Strathclyde Police - who is leading the UK-wide investigation into Tobin's past - said: "Since that last appeal we've identified seven women who 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 the killer'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 Dinah and Vicky two years later.

Detectives are working to establish whether he can be linked to or ruled out of other crimes.