The death of a serial killer who murdered a teenager last seen near Liphook is to be the subject of a government inquiry.

A preliminary hearing into the death of Scottish serial killer Peter Tobin is to take place on May 27, with a full fatal accident inquiry (FAI) following on September 17 and 18 at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

It will examine the circumstances surrounding Tobin’s death in custody in 2022.

Tobin died aged 76 on October 8 of that year at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary while serving three life sentences.

It came a month after he was taken to hospital from HMP Edinburgh after a fall in his cell.

He had also been suffering from prostate cancer, and was under the watch of medics and prison officers.

Tobin was serving the sentences for the murders of Angelika Kluk, 23, Vicky Hamilton, 15, and Dinah McNicol, 18.

He was arrested in 2006 after the discovery of Polish student Kluk's body under the floor of a church he was working at in Glasgow.

A UK-wide police investigation then led officers to the remains of two teenage girls Hamilton and McNicol buried in the garden of Tobin's former home in Kent.

Vicky Hamilton had disappeared in February 1991 as she travelled to her home near Falkirk.

Dinah McNicol from Essex was last seen in August 1991, when she hitched a lift from Tobin after the Torpedo Town Festival, held at Bramshott Common near Liphook.

The notice to begin the court process for an FAI, which is mandatory by law, was lodged by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

It will try to establish whether any reasonable precautions could have been taken to prevent the death.

Unlike criminal proceedings, FAIs are used to establish facts instead of attributing blame to an individual or group.