Detectives in serial killer probe dig up gardens in body hunt

Teams of police officers and archaeologists descended on two properties in Brighton yesterday armed with ground-penetrating radar and shovels.

They are searching for bodies or other evidence left by the 63-year-old when he lived at the addresses in the 1980s.

The development marks a dramatic escalation in a behind-the-scenes inquiry, dubbed Anagram, focusing on Tobin's lifetime of crime.

Police are convinced he claimed more victims as he lived across Britain under different names and trawled motorways for female hitchhikers.

Tobin was told last December that he would die in jail after he was convicted of strangling 18-year-old Dinah McNicol. The former church handyman was already serving life terms for the murders of 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton and Angelika Kluk, 23.

Police discovered the remains of Vicky and Miss McNicol buried in the garden of a house in Margate, Kent, where Tobin moved in March 1991. Detective Chief Inspector Nick Sloan, of Sussex Police, said: ""We have to consider the families of those who may have been one of his victims and it is imperative they find closure. We will strive to achieve this."

Police said the searches behind flats in Marine Parade, Brighton, and a hairdressing salon in Station Road, Portslade, could last a month.

The hairdressing salons were once a cafe, Ye Olde Tea-room, run by Tobin in 1988.

Neighbours recall Tobin doing a substantial amount of DIY on the property as he converted it from a junk shop and cleared the garden.

Marine Parade is a large housing association block of flats which backs on to a small area of grass and concrete paving.

Tobin has refused to talk to detectives.