Prayers said after bodies found

A police search of the garden has been completed

Special prayers have been said at a church in Margate, Kent, after the bodies of two teenage girls were found at a house in the town.

The bodies of Vicky Hamilton, 15, and Dinah McNicol, 18, were found in the back garden - police are now searching the inside of the house.

The Reverend Arthur Howston, of Holy Trinity Church, said many people had been affected.

He said: "We're making special prayers for the families and the community."

He added: "We're very concerned for the local neighbours here in this community that their lives have been so disrupted, especially the family who lived in the home."

People are finding it hard to come to terms with it The Reverend Arthur Howston

And he said there was also a "good thing" in that the families who had lost loved ones may now "be reconciled in some way" and find "closure".

The vicar said: "We're just encouraged by what the police can do these days - and are grateful for what they're doing to resolve these situations."

He added that people in the town were saying words like "horrified, shocked and stunned", and he added: "It's one of those situations no-one could predict and people are finding it hard to come to terms with it."

Police began a search inside the house on Sunday, after completing searches in the garden.

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

Concrete floors are being drilled and the areas under tiled flooring examined.

The body of Miss Hamilton, 15, from Redding near Falkirk, was recovered on Monday, and the remains of Miss McNicol, from Essex, were found in the garden of the property on Friday.

Special prayers have been said in the town of Margate

Peter Tobin, 61, has been charged with murdering Miss Hamilton.

Mr Tobin, who once lived in the property, was charged in Scotland with the 15-year-old's murder and appeared at Linlithgow Sheriff Court on Thursday.

Detectives have carried out house-to-house inquiries in Irvine Drive and have appealed for any residents who lived in the area at the same time as Peter Tobin to get in touch with them.

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".