Peter Tobin's sex crime
MY SEX CRIME NIGHT OF TERROR WITH ANGELIKA KILLER
A SECRET victim of sex killer Peter Tobin
told last night how she fought for her life as he attacked her with a knife.
Tobin went on the run after Cheryl McLachlan
escaped his frenzied assault, and wasn't caught until after he murdered Angelika
Kluk and hid her body in a church.
The beast, already serving life for killing
Angelika, was given a 30-month jail term yesterday for breaking monitoring rules
for sex offenders by going underground after assaulting Cheryl, 24.
And after the court case, Cheryl spoke for
the first time about the ordeal Tobin put her through.
She said: "He was over the top of me,
holding a knife at my throat and trying to pin me down. He kept saying, 'Lie
down, lie down.'
"I was terrified. I remember thinking
that he must be going to kill me if he's got a knife."
Cheryl ran bleeding from Tobin's flat after
suffering a gash to her hand as she tried to grab the blade.
She reported Tobin to police within hours.
And she claimed they could have caught him if they hadn't waited until next day
to go to his home.
Cheryl said: "If the police had acted
sooner, Angelika would still be alive."
Tobin attacked Cheryl on October 23, 2005,
in Paisley, near Glasgow. Her ordeal could not be reported until today for legal
reasons.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Record,
Cheryl told how Tobin, 60, was a drinking buddy of the boy she was seeing at the
time. She said: "He was always very friendly but not over-friendly. He
seemed like a nice old guy.
"I'd lost my dad a couple of years
before and I suppose I felt as if I saw a bit of a father figure in Tobin.
"We would chat about all sorts of
normal things and he was never, ever sleazy. He never even made those kinds of
jokes."
Cheryl trembled as she recalled the day of
the attack. She said: "It was a Sunday and I bumped into him in the street.
"He asked if I wanted to come in for a
coffee and watch the football that was coming on.
"I used to play football and I work as
a stadium steward, so he knew how much of a fan I was. We used to talk about it
quite a bit.
"He'd invited me in before, to give me
a cigarette and stuff, and nothing strange had ever happened. I had no reason to
feel wary.
"I'd been in his flat for a wee while
when I decided to head home. I told him, 'Right, I'd better get going.'"
It was then that Tobin produced the knife
and pounced.
Cheryl said: "I just kept fighting back
and managed to wrestle him off me. In the struggle, I grabbed the knife by the
blade and ripped my hand open.
"Eventually he was on the floor but
still holding me and I was just trying to get away.
"That was when I noticed a tie and a
belt stuffed down the sides of the seat. I realised he had planned to tie me up.
"As I started to get up, he was
shouting, 'I'm only kidding! It was a joke!'
"Then he started to panic and was
acting like he was having a heart attack. He was shouting for me to get his
medicine and running down the hall after me.
"But he still had the knife in his hand
and I kept shouting at him to get rid of it."
Cheryl ran from the flat into the street.
She fled to a relative's house and was taken to hospital for stitches to her
hand.
She gave a statement to police that night.
She said: "They told me he was a known sex offender and I was lucky to get
away.
"I couldn't believe he had done stuff
like this before and was allowed to walk the streets."
Tobin was on the sex offenders' register
after a 14-year jail term for a horrific sex attack on two 14-year-old girls in
England.
He had reported to police in Paisley and
given them his address. But when the cops turned up at his flat to question him
about the attack on Cheryl, he was nowhere to be seen.
Cheryl said: "I don't understand why
the police left it until the next day to raid his flat.
"They knew what he was capable of and
that he had a record of going on the run and yet they gave him the time to get
away."
Cheryl spent the next year fearing that she
would bump into Tobin again. Then she watched a TV report on the Angelika Kluk
case and saw his face staring out from the screen.
"I'll never be able to properly
describe the feeling that went through me," she said.
"It was like burning and freezing all
at once. I almost passed out from the shock."
Tobin was using a false name, Pat
McLaughlin. Cheryl immediately rang police to tell them his true identity.
A jury convicted Tobin of raping Polish
student Angelika, 23, stabbing her repeatedly and beating her with a table leg,
before hiding her body under the floor of the church where he worked as a
handyman, St Patrick's in Anderston, Glasgow.
Throughout the trial, Cheryl suffered
terrifying flashbacks to her own ordeal. And the nightmares continued even after
Tobin was caged for 21 years.
Cheryl said: "Every time I shut my
eyes, I can see it all over again.
"Sometimes I'll be thinking about
something completely different and the memory will just come over me. I haven't
been able to get into a relationship since because I'm scared of men I don't
know.
"I can only hope that I'll begin to
come to terms with it and get my life back. But that can never happen for poor
Angelika."
Strathclyde Police insisted they did all
they could to find Tobin. A spokesman said: "We went to extensive lengths,
including liaising with other forces and agencies.
"We can assure the public that all
lines of inquiry were taken to find him."
Police lost trail of sex offender 10 months ago
THE sex offender suspected of murdering a Polish student in a Glasgow church
avoided capture by the police 10 months ago, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.
Police raided the Paisley flat of 60-year-old Peter Tobin late last year and,
after failing to find him, issued a warrant for his arrest. But despite his
history of serious sex crimes they failed to warn the public he was on the run.
Scots-born Tobin,a convicted rapist, is now being hunted in connection with
the disappearance of 23-year-old Angelika Kluk. Police were last night
continuing to examine a body discovered in St Patrick's Church, Glasgow, where
the Polish languages student had been living over the summer and where Tobin had
been working as a handyman, using the name Pat McLaughlin.
Tobin remains at large, with police warning members of the public not to
approach him.
He is known to have been with the missing girl on Sunday last week, the last
time anyone saw her alive.
Strathclyde Police now face growing pressure over what appears to have been a
series of blunders which allowed Tobin to roam free.
He has slipped through the hands of officers twice in less than 12 months,
first last year after the warrant was issued, and then last week after he was
questioned over Kluk's disappearance.
Last year's warrant was issued after he changed his address without notifying
the police, an offence under the terms of the Sex Offenders Register.
Neighbours said yesterday that Tobin had been seen widely in the area at the
time of the police's inquiries last year. Yet he was never arrested.
Police are also facing questions over why they only discovered the body at St
Patrick's on Friday night, five days after Kluk's disappearance. It is
understood that the body was discovered under floorboards in the church,
following a second search of the building.
One police insider added: "If that was about the last place she was seen
then they should have completely turned the place over until they found her.
They should have found the body."
The case has led to fresh concerns over the monitoring and supervision of
Scotland's 3,000 registered sex offenders.
Politicians said they feared police were being overwhelmed by the sheer
numbers of warrants they have to chase up and were therefore failing to arrest
dangerous criminals who should be under lock and key. At the time Tobin's arrest
warrant was issued last year, a total of seven warrants were outstanding for
rapists in Strathclyde alone.
There were also questions as to why Tobin was even free at all. He had been
released from jail in 2004, four years before the end of his 14-year sentence
for the rape of a teenage girl in England.
Tobin emerged as chief suspect for Kluk's disappearance when, still able to
fool police with his false name, he vanished after being questioned last week.
It took a positive identification from a photograph of his face which was
circulated to the public to finally confirm his true identity.
After officers revealed the fact he was a sex offender on Friday, they then
made the discovery of the body in St Patrick's.
One senior police source last night expressed astonishment that it was only
last week that officers had finally caught up with him.
They said: "For someone this dangerous, he would have been checked
probably weekly at least, and perhaps even daily. More minor offenders might
only be checked up every few months, but in this case we would expect to have
been checking him a lot more often.
"The fact that he went missing should have had the alarm bells ringing.
That a former rapist had gone missing would have had screaming sirens going.
Questions will be asked about why he wasn't found after seemingly going to
ground."
Glasgow Labour MSP Pauline McNeil, whose constituency contains St Patrick's,
said Strathclyde police had a duty to prove they had been doing all they could
to find Tobin over the last year.
"We need to know how proactive the police were in the 10 months since
the warrant was issued. I hope they can demonstrate that they never gave up in
that 10-month period," she said.
She said police were overwhelmed by outstanding warrants. "There are
hundreds and hundreds of warrants outstanding and the police will be looking for
all of them. But you would like to think that in this case they would have given
it a level of priority given the nature of this person's offences."
Stewart Stevenson, justice spokesman for the SNP, said: "There is an
undue sense of delicacy to publicise the fact that a serious sex offender has
fallen below the radar. If we are serious, when a serious sex offender drops out
of contact with the system and the police can't quickly pick him up, then
publicity is something we should make more use of.
"If there is a photo of the person then there is a much greater
likelihood that they will be picked up. It is done with other criminals, so we
should be doing it with serious sex offenders as well."
Stevenson added that it was time to rethink the sentences given to sex
offenders. "If they represent a continuing threat we should be moving to a
more threat-based system rather than a time-based system," he said.
Tobin had been placed on the Sex Offenders Register, which came into force in
1997. Such offenders must give their personal details to police and inform the
authorities if they decide to move.
The rules were tightened at the beginning of this month, giving police powers
to make unannounced raids on sex offenders' homes.
At St Patrick's Church in Glasgow yesterday, flowers were left at the church
gates and surrounding walls. One of those paying their tributes, Martin Smith,
said: "I just feel so sorry for Angelika and her family. I hate to think
what Poles will think of our country after this."
As police pursued Tobin last night, they issued a public safety warning for
another convicted sex offender after he failed to return to approved
accommodation.
Paul Hunter Redpath, 35, originally from Stranraer, pleaded guilty in
Downpatrick Crown Court to sex offences against two young girls in March 2005.
Police in Dumfries and Galloway are thought to be monitoring the ferry port
of Stranraer.
Six questions the police must answer
1 WHY did police fail to apprehend Peter Tobin last autumn, when they knew
his background, true identity and address? Neighbours say Tobin returned to the
flat following the police visit, suggesting he was not trying particularly hard
to avoid capture.
2 WHY were the public not warned at the time that such an obviously dangerous
character was on the run? Police forces have fiercely resisted moves to name sex
offenders, fearing public order problems. Some would suggest, however, that
public safety should be placed first.
3 HAVE Strathclyde Police been actively searching for Tobin since he slipped
through the net last year, or did his case get lost amid the vast numbers of
outstanding warrants?
4 WHY did the police fail to find a body the first time they searched the
church? Senior officers have expressed amazement that the initial sweep of the
building did not reveal the body.
5 WHY, when Tobin - under the false name of Pat McLaughlin - was questioned
by police in connection with Angelika's disappearance did no one realise his
true identity? Some ask why - in the context of a missing young woman - more
rigorous checks into Tobin's story were not carried out.
6 HOW many other known sex offenders are on the run? Scotland on Sunday
recently revealed that in Strathclyde alone there are dozens of sex offenders
with outstanding arrest warrants against them.
Deliberate
Orgasm Duet