Vicky family's 16 years of agony

Vicky's family had previously said they believed she was dead

The confirmation that Vicky Hamilton's body has been found in a garden in Kent marks the end of one of Scotland's biggest ever missing person inquiries.

The 15-year-old's family had previously said they believed she was dead.

However, they never gave up hope of one day learning exactly what became of the schoolgirl, who was last seen at a bus stop in West Lothian in 1991.

The discovery of her remains could finally give the Hamilton family a degree of closure.

It will do little to ease the pain of knowing that Vicky's mother Janette, who died in 1993, never discovered what happened to her daughter.

Vicky had been making her way back to her home in Redding, near Falkirk, from a night out at her sister Sharon's home in Livingston, West Lothian, on 10 February, 1991.

She had last been seen alive sitting eating chips while waiting for a connecting bus in the nearby town of Bathgate.

We gave up hope long ago that she is alive, so to be able to at last say goodbye would let us finally get on with our lives Michael Hamilton Speaking earlier this year

A few days later, her black leather purse containing a small amount of cash and a bus ticket were discovered near St Andrew Square bus station in Edinburgh.

Despite launching a massive nationwide public appeal, detectives drew a blank in their efforts to find her body.

They investigated theories that Vicky, who had only £20 in her bank account and few clothes with her, had run away either to London or abroad.

Forensic examination

The 100 police officers assigned to the case interviewed more than 7,000 people, took 4,000 statements and seized 12,000 documents.

Her case was reconstructed on the BBC's Crimewatch programme two months after she went missing, but police only received four calls from the public.

Detectives regularly revisited the case and carried out an extensive forensic examination of a house in Bathgate earlier this year.

They also searched a house in Hampshire ahead of the examination of the property in Margate where Vicky's remains were found.

In July 2007, a man called Peter Tobin was arrested and charged in connection with Vicky's disappearance.

A forensics tent in the garden where Vicky's body was found

Speaking earlier this year, Vicky's father Michael Hamilton said he hoped his daughter's body would soon be found.

Mr Hamilton said: "I am hoping and praying they find her body. We gave up hope long ago that she is alive, so to be able to at last say goodbye would let us finally get on with our lives."

He had previously said that if Vicky had been murdered, her killer had "not just killed Vicky. He's killed her mother. He's killed half the family".

Speaking in November 2006, Sharon Hamilton said finding her sister's body would help end the family's "15 years of torture".

She added: "It's really difficult and we try to get on, but there are times that we need to know the truth because we need to move on."

Police forces across the UK are now investigating possible links between deaths in their areas and the death of Vicky Hamilton.