Vicky suffered 'unspeakable horror' jury told in Tobin trial summing-up

SCHOOLGIRL Vicky Hamilton met a fate of "almost unspeakable horror", a murder trial was told today.

Prosecutor Frank Mulholland QC said the word "evil" best described what happened to the 15-year-old.

Summing up the Crown's case, he claimed the accused, Peter Tobin, was responsible for putting the schoolgirl's family through a 17-year "nightmare" of wondering what had happened her.

He argued that it had been proved beyond reasonable doubt that Tobin committed the "dreadful" crime and urged jurors to close the file on the case by returning a guilty verdict.

Tobin, 62, is on trial at the High Court in Dundee, where he denies abducting and murdering Vicky and burying her body parts.

The teenager was last seen in Bathgate, West Lothian, on February 10, 1991, as she made her way home to Redding, near Falkirk, after spending the weekend with her sister, Sharon.

The trial has heard that her remains were dug up from a back garden in Margate, Kent, last year.

Jurors heard the final evidence in the case last week, paving the way for lawyers to present their closing speeches today.

In his speech to the jury of 12 women and three men, Mr Mulholland went over the evidence about Vicky's last known movements.

He told the jury: "I would suggest it's clear from the evidence that Vicky did not catch the bus to Falkirk.

"She did not make it home to her mother's that night. She didn't see her favourite TV programme and, as described by her sister, so began the 17-year nightmare of not knowing what happened to Vicky."

He continued: "The Crown case is that Peter Tobin is the person responsible for this nightmare."

Mr Mulholland described the charges faced by the accused as being of the "utmost gravity".

He said: "To abduct, drug, sexually assault and murder a 15-year-old girl who was doing nothing more than trying to get home to her mother's is a crime of almost unspeakable horror.

He said later: "The horror of the fate that befell Vicky Hamilton cannot be overstated.

"I have searched long and hard in my lexicon to find words which can properly describe what happened to this poor girl.

"The best I can do is to describe it as evil."

Urging the jurors to find the accused guilty of the two charges he faces, Mr Mulholland told them: "In my submission, it is proved beyond reasonable doubt that Peter Tobin committed theses dreadful crimes."

The nature of the Crown case against Tobin was a circumstantial one, he said.

He described the case as being like a rope, with each strand coming together to give it strength.

"The power of the circumstantial case is from the build-up of facts which, taken together, leaves us in no doubt as to what the true picture is."

Going through the evidence, Mr Mulholland said it was an "inescapable inference" that Vicky was given the drug Amiltriptyline after she was last seen alive.

He said: "Someone wanted to render her incapable of resisting. Someone wanted to render her defenceless to do her harm.

"What better way to render her defenceless than to drug her."

Mr Mulholland also dismissed the notion that Vicky could have died of natural causes.

He told the court: "I would suggest a healthy 15-year-old girl such as Vicky just doesn't drop dead.

"The proposition that Vicky could have dropped dead as a result of natural causes is as far removed from the evidence as it's possible to be."

Mr Mulholland argued such a notion was "wholly inconsistent" with various strands of evidence.

He also told the jury: "Her body was naked from the waist down – wholly inconsistent with any notion of death by natural causes."

The prosecutor also said Vicky's family had been subjected to "a life of soul-searching" since the 15-year-old disappeared.

"The file on Vicky Hamilton's disappearance was never closed by Lothian and Borders Police," he said.

Inviting them to find Tobin guilty, he told them: "Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you now to finally close this file."

Beginning his speech on behalf of Tobin's legal team, defence QC Donald Findlay put it to the jury: "It's a simple fact that there is not a single, solitary scrap of evidence in this entire case, despite the most massive police inquiry, despite the most massive prosecution, to show you when, where and how Vicky Hamilton left Bathgate, or with whom, or where she went."

He added there was also no evidence that put Tobin in the centre of Bathgate around the time Vicky was last seen there.