Father's pain over Dinah's death

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The father of a teenage girl whose body was found buried at a house in Kent has said it would be "too painful" for him to know how she died.

The bodies of Vicky Hamilton, 15, from near Falkirk, and Dinah McNicol, from Essex, were found in the garden of the terraced house in Margate in November.

Ian McNicol said police were trying to establish how Dinah met her death.

Peter Tobin, 61, who used to live in the house, has been charged in Scotland with murdering Vicky Hamilton.

Mr McNicol, of Tillingham, said police had told him it could be several weeks before they knew how his daughter died.

The 18-year-old went missing in 1991 after a music festival in Liphook, Hampshire.

It's just a comfort to know where she is...after all those years Ian McNicol

Mr McNicol, 68, said: "The police said they can't really tell how she died yet.

"They said they're still trying to find out and don't want to make any mistakes.

"I don't want to know, really. It would be too painful."

He said he was not expecting to be able to hold his daughter's funeral for at least two months.

And he added: "Her body hasn't been released yet - it could be February or March."

Mr McNicol said he would be "glad" when it was all over.

He said: "We are going to have a quiet cremation with just me and the kids and then we will scatter her ashes.

""I don't know where that will be as yet."

He added: "It's just a comfort to know where she is this Christmas after all those years."