Published Date: 24 October 2008
THE Mum of schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton may give evidence from beyond the grave against the man accused of murdering her daughter more than 17 years ago.
At a brief hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh today solicitor general Frank Mulholland QC indicated that he was making a legal move to suspend the usual rules banning hearsay evidence.
This would allow the trial jury to hear statements by Mrs Hamilton, who has died since 15-year-old Vicky went missing, made to police during the investigation into her daughter's disappearance.
The schoolgirl's body was found in the garden of a house in Margate, Kent, last year.
Peter Tobin, 62, is to stand trial on November 3. He faces charges of abducting Vicky in Bathgate, West Lothian, sexually assaulting her and cutting her body in two after murdering her.
Mr Mulholland and Tobin's defence team today assured trial judge Lord Emslie that they were prepared for trial.
Tobin has lodged papers in court claiming that he has an alibi – at the time Vicky disappeared he was hundreds of miles away in the Portsmouth area, he says.
Vicky, from Redding near Falkirk disappeared in February 1991.
She was last seen in Bathgate, West Lothian, where she was changing buses after visiting her sister in Livingston.
The disappearance led to one of the biggest missing person's inquiries in Scotland.
Tobin denies abduction, murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice. His trial in Dundee is expected to last at least three weeks.
The indictment alleges that Tobin made Vicky go with him to his then home in Robertson Avenue, Bathgate, and there, or elsewhere, he assaulted her and drugged her.
It is claimed that Tobin carried out a serious indecent assault as well as struggling with the teenager and causing an injury to her neck.
Tobin is also accused of trying to cover up the murder by hiding Vicky's body, disposing of her clothes and other belongings and trying to lead police on a false trail by leaving her purse under a portacabin.
Tobin further denies bisecting Vicky's body, wrapping her in bin bags, hiding the knives he had used and then "concealing transporting and burying" her body parts.
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/-Murder-trial-Vicky-Hamilton39s.4626688.jp
