Peter Tobin goes on trial for murder of Tillingham girl Dinah McNicol (From Maldon and Burnham Standard)

Peter Tobin goes on trial for murder of Tillingham girl Dinah McNicol

10:43am Tuesday 15th December 2009

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A CONVICTED killer drugged, bound, gagged and murdered a teenager from Tillingham, a court heard yesterday.

Peter Tobin, 63, of Renfrewshire, tied up 18-year-old Dinah McNicol with her own clothes and probably strangled her before burying her in his garden, it is alleged.

William Clegg QC, prosecuting, told the jury Tobin claimed the hole, at his then home in Irvine Drive, Margate, was for a sandpit for his son but it was actually the grave for a teenager abducted for sexual gratification.

In August 1991 Dinah visited a music festival in Liphook, Hampshire.

She left with David Tremlett, who she had met at the festival, and they hitchhiked on their way back home.

David got out of the car, allegedly driven by Tobin, but Dinah stayed to continue her journey back to Essex.

Mr Clegg said: "No-one Dinah knew ever saw or heard from her again."

Tobin has already been convicted of the murder of 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton whose body was found in the same garden cut in two.

She had been drugged with amitriptyline to make her more compliant and evidence suggested she was buggered before being killed.

Tobin also has further convictions for rape and buggery on young girls where the same drug was used.

Mr Clegg told the jury this showed a pattern of behaviour which is matched by the way Dinah was found - on November 16, 2007 - more than 16 years after she first disappeared.

He said: "The body was tied up, the wrists had been tied together with the arms behind her back, the ankles were also tied together.

"A knotted gag was found in her mouth, presumably to keep her quiet while she was murdered."

The defendants fingerprints were found on the bags used to wrap up her body and amitriptyline traces were also found.

Her body was too decomposed to examine for sexual assaults but Mr Clegg said the circumstances and the history shows Tobin's likely behaviour.

He is accused of having "a propensity to abduct young girls, administer the drug amitriptyline to them, murder them and bury their bodies in his garden in rubbish sacks".

The jury, at Chelmsford Crown Court yesterday also heard that nearly all the money Dinah had inherited - after her mother died in a car crash in Burnham - had been withdrawn from four locations connected to Tobin after her disappearance.

The first trial was halted due to illness.

The trial continues.

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