Prosecutors welcome conclusion of Peter Tobin fatal accident inquiry

Prosecutors have welcomed the conclusion of the fatal accident inquiry into the death of serial killer Peter Tobin.

Tobin, 76, was receiving palliative care when he died in hospital on October 8 2022, a month after a fall in a cell at HMP Edinburgh, where he was serving three life sentences for the murders of three young women who vanished between 1991 and 2006.

The inquiry heard last month that at the time of his death in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Tobin was suffering from cancer which had gone undiagnosed for years as he refused medical tests, as well as hospital-acquired pneumonia.

In a determination published on Wednesday, Sheriff Matthew Auchincloss found no precautions could have been taken which might have resulted in Tobin’s death being avoided.

He wrote: “At the time of his death, Peter Tobin was a 76-year-old man who had been living with a number of serious health conditions. He suffered a fall in prison.

“Prison staff dealt with the situation appropriately and he was given appropriate medical care in hospital.

“Medical staff had expected Peter Tobin’s death given a decline after his injury and surgery, combined with his general frailty.”

Tobin underwent surgery for a fractured right hip on September 9, the day after the fall in his cell, and tests confirmed he was suffering from metastatic prostate cancer.

He was heard to be “speaking incoherently” by prison guards shortly before his death in hospital, the FAI was told.

On October 12 2022, a post-mortem examination confirmed the cause of death as “bronchial pneumonia in a man with a fractured right neck of femur (surgically treated on September 9 2022), generalised vascular disease and prostate cancer”.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) released a statement which “welcomed” the FAI findings.

It came exactly 18 years after Tobin’s first appearance in Glasgow Sheriff Court for the murder of Polish student Angelika Kluk, 23, whose body was hidden under St Patrick’s Church in Glasgow where he worked as a handyman.

In November 2007, the remains of two teenage girls who vanished in 1991 – Vicky Hamilton, 15, and Dinah McNicol, 18 – were found under the patio of Tobin’s “house of horrors” in Margate, Kent.

A mandatory FAI was held into his death on September 17 this year, due to the death occurring in custody.

The purpose of an FAI is to establish the circumstances of the death and to consider what steps, if any, may be taken to prevent other deaths in similar circumstances.

The procurator fiscal, who acts in the public interest at FAIs, led evidence on the facts and circumstances of Tobin’s death.

Procurator fiscal Andy Shanks, who leads on fatalities investigations for COPFS, said: “We note and welcome the sheriff’s determination.”