Ex-cop who put away Peter Tobin warns system still fails victims

Peter Tobin after being convicted of the murder of Angelika Kluk.

Scotland’s most dangerous serial killer Peter Tobin exploited failures in the offender monitoring system to kill under the radar for years.

As a registered sex offender, the predator should have been continually monitored after a horrific sex attack on two defenceless teenagers in England in 1993 left them for dead at Tobin’s flat.

The ferocity of the crime meant Johnstone-born Tobin was placed on the Violent and Sexual Offender list.

But Tobin stayed on the run for years using fake identities, moving around the country targeting vulnerable young girls and women before finally killing his last victim, Polish student Angelika Kluk, in 2006.

Victims of serial killer Peter Tobin (left - right) Angelika Kluk, Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol. — Victims of serial killer Peter Tobin (left – right) Angelika Kluk, Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol.

The supposedly religious down-on-his-luck handyman who fooled alcoholic priest Father Gerry Nugent into taking him in was only unmasked as a serial killer after he hid Angelika’s body underneath St Patrick’s chapel in Glasgow in a case that shocks with twists and turns.

Lessons not learned from Peter Tobin case

A new two-part TV documentary, The Hunt for Peter Tobin, unveils chilling detail of how he was only caught by chance when a hospital nurse in London recognised him as her patient using a fake name.

Today, we reveal the man who put Tobin behind bars believes lessons have still not been learned from the case, and failures in the system continue to let predators target the vulnerable.

Former Detective Superintendent David Swindle said: “Tobin was able to travel around the UK for decades, using hundreds of aliases, addresses, vehicles and mobile phone sim cards. When he killed Angelika Kluk, he had a false identity with a name badge and was helping homeless people at the church in Glasgow where the Polish student had disappeared.

“Serial killers like him are cunning, conniving, controlling and, I hate to say, clever. He knew exactly what he was doing keeping himself under the radar as a registered sex offender.

“Scotland now has the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (Mappa), however, despite the joint inter-agency working, determined people like him do sometimes slip through the system.”

They include predators like Jason Graham, 33, who raped and murdered Glasgow pensioner Esther Brown, 67, in May 2021 while supposedly being monitored and on a curfew.

Drug user Jason Graham, who murdered 67-year-old Esther Brown — Jason Graham, who murdered 67-year-old Esther Brown

There are numerous examples of dangerous domestic abusers, including Darryl Paterson, who despite convictions are not monitored because of court failure to act.

Louise Aitchison, 33, was murdered minutes after police left her East Kilbride home following a domestic abuse call in 2020 during which they failed to arrest Paterson or warn the unsuspecting nurse about the danger she was in.

Vicious killer Robbie McIntosh, 34, stabbed a dog walker to death on Dundee Law when he was just 15. He was being prepared for parole when he struck again, leaving Linda McDonald with life-changing head injuries when he battered her with a dumbbell in the same city’s Templeton Woods in 2017, highlighting flaws that ruled him “safe” for home leave.

Sadistic Christopher McGowan, 29, beat, strangled and tortured young mum Claire Inglis, 28, inflicting 76 injuries as he killed her in Stirling in 2021. Social work concerns fell through the gaps, granting him bail despite 40 previous convictions.

Serial offender and rapist John McDougall, 45, has abused the system for 20 years. Despite warnings about him being a danger, he has repeatedly been freed to attack and target dozens of women. McDougall was jailed again last month for breaching restriction orders.

Convicting Tobin

The documentary shows how Swindle, an internationally recognised murder investigator, developed groundbreaking Operation Anagram to track and identify the serial killer who he believes took the dark secrets of other victims around the UK to his grave.

The detective immediately recognised Tobin’s calculated behaviour under questioning by officers during Angelika’s disappearance, signalling this was a killer used to hiding in plain sight.

Tobin’s son’s DNA on Vicky Hamilton’s purse led to police finding her and Dinah McNicol buried in the garden at Tobin’s Margate home.

Swindle said: “He was cool while giving a statement to officers over Angelika’s disappearance, even hanging around for a couple of days before disappearing and we found her body buried under the floorboards. I instinctively knew Tobin did not get to the age of 60 and suddenly kill. He had done this before.”

Swindle painstakingly began tracing dozens of previous addresses for Tobin, attempting to link them with missing victims across the UK, involving other forces.

His exemplary work led to Tobin being convicted for the abduction and murder of schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton, 15, solving the mystery of what had happened to the teenager who mysteriously disappeared in 1991 while waiting for a bus home to Redding near Falkirk.

Only her purse was ever found, discarded some time later miles away. DNA from saliva on the purse turned out to be from Tobin’s toddler son. Operation Anagram established that the killer had been living in Bathgate at the time of Vicky’s disappearance, and that he had left the area for Margate soon after.

The knife Tobin used was found by forensic teams taking apart his Bathgate home.

In one surprising twist, Vicky’s dismembered body was eventually discovered hundreds of miles away, buried in the garden of another of Tobin’s homes in Margate.

Police searching there initially believed the body would be Dinah McNicol, an 18-year-old sixth former from Tillingham, Essex, who had also been missing since she disappeared in 1991 hitchhiking from a music festival.

Dinah was buried elsewhere in the Margate garden.

A jury in Chelmsford convicted Tobin of that third murder in just 15 minutes.

Swindle said: “I have no doubt Tobin killed other women throughout the UK, however despite the extent and massive inter-force work on Operation Anagram we have never been able to identify other victims. I am proud of what was achieved, however it’s sad we never managed to identify the others I believe Tobin murdered.”

Tobin’s crimes

Hiding behind a mask of obsequiousness, Tobin hunted his prey at churches and homeless units, masquerading as a handyman. The public only ever caught a glimpse of his real nature when he flew at a photographer as he was led away to jail.

Swindle said: “Like Fred and Rose West and Denis Nilsen, Tobin targeted victims he knew may not be reported missing. He buried them and was forensically aware so the full extent of his murderous behaviour will never be known.”

Tobin’s demeanour as he gave Police Scotland officers a false name and statement while they were looking for Angelika alarmed Swindle.

He said: “There he was at the age of 60, giving police a statement and false name. He remained cool, even hanging around for a couple of days before taking off for London, where he feigned illness at hospital.

“That demeanour told me here was a man who had done this before.

“Over the years there has been speculation, including that he allegedly told a psychiatrist he had killed 48 women. Tobin never said that. He was a horrible cowardly individual in total denial of the crimes he was convicted of.

“One thing I am certain of is, he killed other women throughout the UK.”

Tobin died in October 2022, aged 76, taking monstrous secrets of other victims to his grave.

The documentary highlights the tragic coincidence of both Vicky’s family and Dinah’s haunted father Ian appearing on television shows together as they each attempted to raise awareness over their “missing” girls, unaware they had lain buried within feet of each other in Tobin’s Margate garden for years.

Vicky’s broken mother Janette died at 41, two years after her daughter disappeared. Ian McNicol, who died in 2014, said when Dinah was found it was a “relief”.

He said: “You can’t grieve when someone is missing. You cling to hope they’ll be found.”

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said: “This documentary confirms that serial sex offender and killer Peter Tobin was given the freedom to claim innocent lives due to a public protection system that failed in its basic duty.

“That was decades ago. But as we saw with catastrophic public protection failures leading to the murder of Esther Brown, and in many other horrific cases, the system is still not fit for purpose after 18 years of SNP government failings.

“For the sake of everyone, but especially women and girls, this must change.”

Both episodes of The Hunt for Peter Tobin will be on BBC iPlayer from Tuesday 4th March. Watch them weekly on the BBC Scotland channel on Tuesdays.