The family living in serial killer Peter Tobin's house, 13 years after tragic discovery of Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol

A mother-of-three has revealed what it is like to live in the mid-terrace council house in Margate, Kent, where Scottish serial killer Peter Tobin buried the bodies of teenagers Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol – insisting she refuses to be affected by the property’s horrific past.

Abigail Dengate, 38, was living in a cramped two-bed flat with her dad and three children when she pleaded with the council for a home with more space.

But the only space available was empty number 50, the site of a brutal and horrifying tragedy.

Tobin was sentenced to a minimum 21 years for the rape and murder of Angelika Kluk in Glasgow in 2006, just three years after his release for a double rape in 1993.

Abigail Dengate in the garden of the house where Peter Tobin buried 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton and 18-year-old Dinah McNicol.

Remains of 15-year-old Falkirk schoolgirl Vicky and 18-year-old Essex student Dinah, who both went missing in 1991, were later found in 2007 at his former home in Margate.

Both of the dismembered remains were discovered in black bin bags buried 6ft deep and covered with concrete cap and earth.

Tobin told neighbours he was digging a sandpit as he prepared the graves for Vicky and Dinah in his back garden, where Abigail's unsuspecting six-year-old now plays.

Thirteen years later, the house's current occupant has now transformed the once-horrific site for her six-year-old daughter who does not know what happened in her new play area.

Now 74, Tobin is serving a whole life order in Saughton Prison, though he is reportedly dying from cancer.

His 2006 conviction for murdering 23-year-old Polish student Angelika gave light to new evidence giving police cause to start searching his former homes – including the house in Margate, where Tobin moved in 1991 following a house swap from his native Scotland.

On November 14, police found the remains of Vicky, who had last been seen waiting for a bus in Bathgate, in February 1991, just weeks before Tobin moved into the property.

Two days later, police discovered the remains of Dinah, who vanished while hitchhiking home from a music festival in Hampshire in August 1991.

Courts were later told how Tobin murdered Dinah five months after arriving at the property.

While Dinah’s father had called on Thanet council to bulldoze the house and build a memorial garden, there were difficulties with it being mid-terrace and the need for housing in the area and so they decided to refurbish it.

Ms Dengate had long followed the Tobin case. But despite its history, she was living in a cramped flat around the corner and put in a bid to move into the home.

After being on the housing waiting list for four years, she was pleased and surprised when she was told it was hers.

Eleven years later, the Tobin house is her home with her dad and three children Craig, 21, Kyra, 17, and six-year-old Lottie.

She said: “Even though people might have thought it strange that we wanted to live here, to us we didn't care about what had happened in the past – it's a house.

“I don't mean that we don't care what happened to the girls, that was horrible, but I mean it didn't bother us living here.”

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