New search in missing Vicky probe

Police have started a search at the house in Southsea

Police investigating the disappearance of schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton, who went missing in 1991, have been searching a house in Hampshire.

Officers confirmed that the search was in connection with the disappearance of the 15-year-old Falkirk schoolgirl.

Officers from the Scottish force have been examining a house in Victoria Road North, Southsea.

Police announced in July that a 60-year-old man had been arrested and charged with her murder.

Officers appeared to be digging up concrete and looking under the patio in the back garden of the house in Southsea, which was the former home of a man called Peter Tobin.

He was understood to have moved in a few months after Vicky was last seen.

Over the weekend, more vans and police came and then they erected a tent in the back garden of next door and all the forensic people started coming Eyewitness Julie Sommerville

Earlier this year officers spent three weeks searching a house in Bathgate, West Lothian, where Mr Tobin was living at the time Vicky disappeared.

Julie Sommerville, who lives next door to the latest house to be searched, said she first noticed a police presence on Friday.

She said: "Over the weekend, more vans and police came and then they erected a tent in the back garden of next door and all the forensic people started coming.

"Saturday night and Sunday morning there was drilling, banging from next door, as if they were knocking walls or looking for something.

"I've also seen them taking out blankets and curtains from next door and putting them in the tent."

Vicky Hamilton went missing as she returned home in 1991

She said the flat being searched was a bottom floor flat where two elderly men stayed.

Vicky was last seen standing at a bus stop in Bathgate's George Square, just after 1735 GMT on 10 February, 1991.

Eyewitnesses said that she was sitting on a bench eating chips.

Vicky had been returning from Livingston, where she had been staying with her sister, to her home in Redding, near Falkirk.

The teenager's disappearance led to one of Scotland's biggest missing person inquiries, with more than 7,000 people interviewed, 4,000 statements taken and 12,000 documents seized. But officers found no trace of her.

In 1993, Vicky's mother Janette died without knowing what had happened to her daughter.

In the past, her family have said they believe she is dead.