Surge in calls to police over suspected serial killer

A CID team tracing the convicted murderer's past is following up information from the public about his life in Brighton and Hove as the spotlight falls on the city where he lived for 20 years.

Sussex detectives working on Operation Anagram - a nationwide exercise to trace Tobin's movements and possible links with unsolved crimes - plan to contact all the current owners and occupants of his former houses.

But detectives are ruling out tearing apart any addresses - or their gardens - until they have solid grounds to suspect they are linked to unsolved murders.

A house where Tobin lived in Margate, Kent, in 1991 has so far yielded up the bodies of two missing girls, 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton and 18-year-old Dinah McNicol.

There are now five known addresses in Brighton and Hove where Tobin lived between 1969 and 1989 - although police believe he also spent periods in his native Scotland during that time.

One former neighbour, Tony Fines, said Tobin ran a tearoom in Station Road, Portslade, in 1988 while living with future wife Cathy Wilson and their baby son.

Mr Fines was contacted last month by Lothian and Borders Police as they searched for information about Tobin's life.

He said the couple first opened a junk shop in Station Road, Portslade, than changed it into Ye Olde Tearoom.

He said: "There was a flat behind it and a basement.

"He started doing all this DIY work.

"He put a kitchen in and did it all up quite well. He cleared the garden.

"I remember he showed me a tiny gold bracelet which he said had been embedded in the brickwork of an old fireplace he was working on in the shop."

Mr Fines, now of Glendor Road, Hove, told The Argus he has passed on what he can remember about the incident to Sussex Police.

He said foreign students who lodged in his flat complained to him about Tobin.

He said: "I remember a couple of our students saying they were down the garden sunbathing and he was staring at them.

"My wife said she was down there sunbathing and happened to look up and he was standing there staring from his half of the garden.

"She always said there was something creepy about him but she couldn't put her finger on why."

Mr Fines said at the time Tobin was driving a new red Kawasaki motorcycle.

Sussex Police confirmed they have established a Portslade address for Tobin as part of their inquiry.

In 1969, when Tobin married his first wife, Margaret Mountney, he was living in a house in Dyke Road, Brighton, and working as a chef.

The marriage was dissolved, and Tobin reportedly spent time in prison for theft.

In 1973 he married his second wife, Sylvia Jefferies, while the couple lived at Regency Square.

Little is known of his movements over the next thirteen years.

He met his third wife, Cathy, in Brighton in 1986, when she was just 16.

Their son Daniel, was born in December 1987, when the couple were living in Eastern Street in Kemp Town. At that time Tobin described himself as a thermal insulating carpenter.

The couple did not marry until August 1989. By then they were living in a ground-floor flat at Chadborn Close on the Bristol estate in East Brighton.

Pauline Terry, 71, now of Saunders Park View, lived in the flat above the family.

She said: "He cleared the front garden to make a space for his motorbike. I didn't really know them much.

"It was a narrow strip, about three or four feet wide. There was a bush there that he dug up too.

"It was quite odd because he didn't put any plants in.

"I can't believe I lived there. You don't expect to live next door to someone like that."

Tobin appeared in court last week charged with the murder of Vicky Hamilton.

In 1993 he raped and sexually assaulted two girls, aged 14 and 15. He was convicted in 1994 and served ten years in prison.

In May he was given a life sentence for the murder of Polish student Angelika Kluk in Glasgow in 2006.

The continuing search for human remains at Tobin's Margate council house prompted speculation police could search buildings in Sussex for bodies.

Detectives have already searched properties in Bathgate, West Lothian, and Southsea, Hampshire, where Tobin lived after leaving Brighton.

But Steve Watts, assistant chief constable of Hampshire police, who is leading Operation Anagram, said there is no immediate plan to search further properties.

He said: "At this time, Operation Anagram is a national scoping exercise to identify whether there are any issues of concern that will require further action.

"There is no plan at this time to search any further premises but these options will be considered should the intelligence and evidence developed within Operation Anagram warrant it.

"Any searches will be carried out in consultation with current occupants or owners."

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