Death house examination to start

A police search of the garden has been completed

Police are to begin a search inside a Kent house after the discovery of two teenage girls' bodies in its grounds.

Officers have finished searching a garden at the property in Margate where the bodies were found buried.

They are now preparing to examine the ground floor of the house to focus on any "anomalies" in the structure.

Concrete floors will be drilled and the areas under tiled flooring examined. Later, prayers will be said in church for the two dead girls.

Community 'shock'

The bodies of Dinah McNicol, 18, and Vicky Hamilton, 15, have been recovered. Peter Tobin, 61, has been charged with murdering Miss Hamilton.

The remains of Miss McNicol, from Essex, were found in the garden of the property on Friday.

In pictures: Garden search

The body of Miss Hamilton, 15, from Redding near Falkirk, was recovered on Monday. Both women went missing in 1991.

The Rev Arthur Howston, of Holy Trinity Church, Margate, said the community was in shock.

He said: "People are still not really taking it on board, what's happened this last week.

"There's a lot of surprise, you know, just really shock [that] something like this could happen in our community..."

The current resident of 50 Irvine Drive, Nicola Downing, moved into the house in 1995 four years after Peter Tobin left.

On Saturday Ms Downing returned to the house to help police with the investigation.

Essex Police press officer Tabitha Wilson said: "She came to point out any structural alterations and any changes that may have been made to the property. It's obviously a harrowing time for her."

'Nightmare' of house family

Looking solemn, Ms Downing left the house with her boyfriend after about 40 minutes inside.

Det Supt Tim Wills said: "It has been a long week of intensive physical work.

"The team, encouraged by yesterday's sad discovery, is determined to continue with this for as long as it takes."

Dinah McNicol's father Ian told the BBC that, after 15 years of searching for the truth about what happened to his daughter, he had given up virtually all hope.

"I actually gave up last year because I'd had the heart attack and three mini-strokes, and my health was just going right down hill, so I thought, well, give it up.

"I actually had the year out and the police approached me this time and of course I'm fit for it now and anything you can throw at me throw it, I can catch it."

It is thought a number of other murder cases are being re-examined in the light of the Margate discoveries.

These are believed to include the murder of Jessie Earl, who disappeared from Eastbourne in East Sussex in 1980 and was found dead nine years later, and the deaths of three women killed in Glasgow in the late 1960s by a man dubbed "Bible John".