Two former neighbours of suspected serial killer Peter Tobin have told The Argus how his "odd" behaviour gave them cause for concern.

Each said his recent conviction for the murder of a Polish student prompted doubts in their minds about incidents that happened while he lived in Brighton and Portslade.

One neighbour told last night how he dug up a narrow strip of garden outside his flat in Brighton but didn't put any plants in.

Pauline Terry, 71, now of Saunders Park View, lived in the flat above the family in Chadborn Close on the Bristol estate in Brighton.

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."

Another former neighbour has also found himself questioning Tobin's behaviour. Tony Fines, said Tobin ran a tea room 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 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."

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

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

The developments emerged as the police investigation into Tobin's life in Sussex last night gathered pace.

A team of detectives tracing the convicted murderer's past is following up information from the public about his life in Brighton and Hove, where he lived for 20 years.

Sussex detectives working on Operation Anagram - the 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 homes, or digging up gardens, unless they have grounds to suspect they are linked to unsolved murders.

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

There are five known addresses in Brighton and Hove where Tobin lived between 1969 and 1989.

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

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. By August 1989, they were living in the ground-floor flat at Chadborn Close.

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

In 1993, he raped two girls, aged 14 and 15. He was convicted in 1994 and served ten years. In May he was given a life sentence for the murder of Polish student Angelika Kluk in Glasgow in 2006.

  • Did you know Tobin? Leave your comments below or email news@theargus.co.ukor call the newsdesk on 01273 544520.