Father's pilgrimage to the charnel house

IT WAS the moment murdered schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton's father had been dreading.

Struggling to control his emotions, he forced himself to stare into the grave where his daughter's remains had lain buried in a sandpit for more than 16 years.

Michael Hamilton made the emotional 500-mile trip from his Falkirk home to 50 Irvine Drive, in Margate, Kent, nearly two weeks after Vicky's remains were dug up.

The remains of missing teenager Dinah McNicol were also found in the back garden.

Her father Ian McNicol, originally from Glasgow, and Mr Hamilton were yesterday united in the most tragic circumstances when they met for the first time. In a private meeting, the heartbroken fathers embraced and gave the girls a final toast with a bottle of single-malt whisky.

Mr McNicol, 55, said: "We cracked open a bottle of scotch and had a toast to our girls.

"We had a toast to having closure for both our daughters and, being Scottish, we managed to kill a bottle of single-malt whisky.

We had a nice chat about our two daughters.

"In a way his family cannot understand how he feels and in a way my family can't understand how I feel, but we share a bond, it's a really personal thing."

Vicky and Dinah went missing within six months of each other in 1991.

During the 15-minute visit to his daughter's grave yesterday, Mr Hamilton laid flowers at the three-bedroom council house.

His silence was in contrast to the anger he displayed when Peter Tobin appeared at Linlithgow Sheriff Court to be charged with Vicky's murder. The distraught father had to be restrained as Tobin left in a Reliance van.

Mr Hamilton's son, Michael jnr, 19, said he thought his father needed to see for himself where his daughter had been buried. "My dad thinks going to the place where Vicky was discovered and meeting Dinah's dad will help him come to terms with what has happened.

"I've not seen Dad break down since Vicky was found and I think seeing where she was buried will help him grieve properly. He has periods of happiness at finding Vicky, but times of great sadness thinking about what she must have gone through before her death."

Tobin, 61, missed two court appearances last week after being attacked while in custody at Edinburgh's Saughton jail.

Despite his absence last Friday, he was committed at Linlithgow Sheriff Court for trial and has now been transferred from hospital back to Saughton.

Vicky was last seen at a bus stop in Bathgate, West Lothian, in February 1991.

Dinah was 18 when she disappeared in August of the same year.