Name: The Hunt for Peter Tobin
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2025-03-04
Rating: 6.9
Cast: Vicky Hamilton, Kaye Adams, William Clegg

I'm from Glasgow so this two-part documentary on the serial-killer Peter Tobin really hit home with me, remembering in particular the impact of his last murder, that of the young Polish girl Angelica Kluk which took place in of all places a Glasgow city centre church Miss Kluk attended and where Tobin worked as a handyman under a fake pseudonym.

What wasn't known as he was arrested in London to where he'd fled, was that when the police then investigated previous addresses where he'd stayed, they would find buried in the garden of one of them the remains of two other young girls who'd disappeared without trace some fourteen years previously, Bathgate teenager Vicky Hamilton and eighteen year-old Dinah McNicol from Essex.

This, plus the fact that various untraced items of women's jewellery were found in his possession has led to speculation that he may have committed many other unresolved murders. As the monster died in 2022 without revealing anything about other crimes he may have committed, we'll never know if that was indeed the case, but it seems highly likely that any time he was free (he served a lot of jail time for other sexually deviant crimes) he might well have carried out other killings.

The image that resonates of this truly evil man is the one where he's caught on camera being led away after being sentenced for Miss Kluk's murder and lashes out at a waiting photographer with a savage kick. Here you see this vile man in all his ignominy, his face contorted with hate and you can't help but feel compassion and regret for these three unfortunate youngsters who were unfortunate enough to cross his path.

This BBC Scotland production told the story beginning with Vicky Hamilton's and then Dinah McNicol's respective disappearances back in 1992. Separated by over 400 miles, they were unconnected at the time. Both were extremely high-profile cases and we're shown archive footage of the impact of both cases on the parents of both girls, indeed as Vicky's surviving younger sister makes clear, her mother died within two years of her daughter's disappearance of a broken heart while the devastating effect of his loss clearly shows on Dinah's father's appearance with the passage of time.

In a cruel coincidence both Mr McNicol and Vicky's older sister later appeared on the same TV programme sharing their experience whilst trying to publicise the plight of their then still missing girls, obviously completely unaware that they were victims of Tobin and were indeed buried in the same plot in Margate.

The whole sorry and shocking story of this psychopath is told through a mixture of vintage television reporting together with present-day interview footage of journalists, investigating officers and of course, family members.

However I felt that too often the narrative side-tracked into other more general subjects such as how journalism reports such crimes or the rise in domestic abuse against women which while important and in some ways relevant to the plight of these unfortunate young women, for me lessened the merited focus on their own lives and the awful sadness of their deaths. This may have been done with good intentions but I personally think these editorial choices diminished the impact of a well-meant but flawed retelling of this sorry episode in Scottish criminal history.

The documentary is a form of non-fiction storytelling that aims to present factual information, insights, and perspectives on real-world subjects, events, issues, or people. Documentaries can cover a wide range of topics, including history, science, culture, social issues, nature, biographies, and more.

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The Hunt for Peter Tobin

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