Second body found at Margate house

LONDON (Reuters) - A second body was found on Friday at a house in Kent where extensive searches are under way as part of a nationwide investigation into unsolved cases of missing girls.

Police said the remains had been discovered at the house in Margate where the body of a teenage girl who vanished from her home in Scotland 16 years ago was found on Wednesday.

Officers had been looking for remains of another teenager, Dinah McNicol, who was 18 when she vanished after failing to return to her home in Essex after a music festival in Liphook, Hampshire, in the summer of 1991.

She was last seen hitching a lift with a man on the M25 motorway. Neither the driver nor the car has ever been traced.

"There has been a significant discovery within the last couple of hours," said Detective Superintendent Tim Wills, speaking outside the house.

"There has been another body discovered. There will be arrangements made this afternoon for a post mortem locally.

Police said McNicol's family had been informed about the new discovery but said it was too early to say if the remains were hers.

On Thursday, handyman Peter Tobin, 61, appeared at a private hearing at Linlithgow Sheriff Court in Scotland accused of killing 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton, who disappeared from Bathgate, West Lothian, in 1991.

Her remains were found at the house in Margate, which media reports said once belonged to Tobin, earlier in the week.

(Reporting by Michael Holden, Editing by Tim Castle)