HERE is a timeline of events surrounding the investigation into the disappearance of schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton.
1991• February 10:
Vicky Hamilton, 15, disappears. She is last seen at a bus stop in Bathgate waiting for a bus to take her home to Redding, near Falkirk in Scotland.1993•
Vicky's mother Janette dies, going to the grave without knowing what had happened to her daughter.1994• May:
Peter Tobin pleads guilty at Winchester Crown Court to a double sex attack on two 14-year-old schoolgirls. After plying the girls with drink and drugs he brutally raped one and indecently assaulted the other. He was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.
2004• Tobin is released from prison and moves into a flat in Paisley, Scotland.
2005• October: Tobin goes on the run following an alleged incident involving a young woman. When officers attempt to question the registered sex offender, they find he has disappeared from his home.
2006• September 24: Polish student Angelika Kluk, 23, last seen at St Patrick's Church in Anderston, Glasgow.
• September 28: Police release a picture of a man known as Pat McLaughlin, an odd-job man who is thought to be the last person to have seen Angelika. They later confirm that McLaughlin is an alias used by Peter Tobin, a registered sex offender.
• September 30:
The body of Angelika Kluk is found under the floor of St Patrick's Church.• October 1: Tobin is arrested in London.
• October 7:
Tobin is formally charged with the murder of the Polish student.• November 15:
Detectives investigating the disappearance of Vicky Hamilton reveal that they are now conducting a murder inquiry – and are hoping for a breakthrough using DNA testing.Vicky's disappearance had, until then, been treated as a missing person's inquiry, but police intend to review the whole case as they begin their murder probe.
2007• May 4:
After a six-week trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, Tobin is found guilty of the rape and murder of Angelika Kluk.• May 22:
It emerges that the former home of Angelika Kluk's killer Peter Tobin is to be searched by detectives probing the disappearance of Vicky Hamilton.• June 4:
Police begin searching Tobin's former home in Robertson Avenue, Bathgate. It is only about a mile away from the town centre, where Vicky was last seen eating a bag of chips.• June 28:
The house is returned to its owners.• July 21: Tobin is arrested and charged in connection with the disappearance of Vicky Hamilton.
• July 25: He is taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary after suffering a heart attack.
• October 3: Police began searching a house in Victoria Road North in the Southsea area of Portsmouth, Hampshire, in connection with the investigation into Vicky Hamilton's disappearance.
• October 10: The search of the house in Portsmouth ends. Police refused to say if anything was discovered in the search.
• November 12: Police begin a search of Tobin's former house in Margate, Kent.
• November 13: The remains of a woman are found buried in the back garden of the house.
• November 14: Police confirm that the body is that of Vicky Hamilton.
• November 15: Tobin is formally charged at Linlithgow Sheriff Court with the murder of Vicky Hamilton.
• November 22: Tobin in hospital after being attacked in Edinburgh's Saughton prison the previous evening.
• November 30:
Vicky Hamilton is laid to rest at New Grandsable Cemetery near Falkirk.2008• September 1: Peter Tobin pleads not guilty to abducting and murdering Vicky Hamilton when he appears at the High Court in Edinburgh.
• November 3:
Tobin goes on trial at the High Court in Dundee.• December 3:
Tobin found guilty of Vicky's murder after a three week trial.
The full article contains 619 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
