Mrs Love recalled meeting Tobin from time to time and speaking to him in the early 1990s.

The friend, whose birthday they were celebrating, was born on February 10, 1971. She said they all worked in a Bathgate pub and arranged to meet there at 7pm on the Sunday night of her friend’s birthday.

They had a couple of drinks in the bar and went on to another pub, where her friend had arranged to meet people she knew.

They stayed there until closing time, around quarter to eleven, and were gathered on the pavement outside intending to go to a disco.

There was a group of people outside the pub opposite, she told the court. “I just heard ‘Oi’ from across the road.

“My friend asked me who shouted and I said it was just my next-door neighbour.”

Although she only turned around for a split second to look at the group across the road, she said she recognised her neighbour at the time and he was wearing a black leather biker’s jacket, dark trousers and maybe a scarf.

She said she was not 100% sure it was Peter Tobin, but was 80% certain.

However she was 100% certain it was the night of her friend’s 20th birthday.

Cross-examined by Donald Findlay QC for Peter Tobin, she agreed the circumstances in which she claimed to have seen his client were a picture of ordinary events on a Sunday night in Bathgate.

She was asked how much she had to drink and said, because she was working the next day, she thought she had only four vodkas and cola.

Mr Findlay asked if she and her friends usually bought rounds and she said because they were “skint”, they bought their own drinks.

Mr Findlay said Peter Tobin was not particularly tall or well built and she agreed, identifying the accused in the dock, and saying she thought he was a little bit thinner now than he had been.

Mr Findlay asked if she knew anyone else who had a motorcycle or wore black leathers at the time and she said Tobin was the only one she knew who had a bike and wore a leather jacket.

Mr Findlay suggested that if it was Peter Tobin she had seen, it was difficult to imagine him doing anything more ordinary than coming out of a pub at closing time.

“He was doing what you were doing. He was coming out of a pub simply because it was closing time. Standing there in exactly the same manner as every other person coming from a pub emptying out into the streets of Bathgate.

“You could not imagine a more ordinary picture in the streets of Bathgate at that time on a Sunday night,” Mr Findlay said. The witness replied, “No.”

In re-examination by the Solicitor General Frank Mulholland QC, she was asked if she had seen Peter Tobin’s face and she said she had.

An overnight drive from Portsmouth to the house where Peter Tobin lived in Bathgate was earlier described to jurors.

Steven English (44) told the court he had an 18-month relationship with Cathy Tobin, who was estranged from her husband when they met.

He was aware the couple had a child and Peter Tobin had access to the child, perhaps once a month or more often.

He said he met Cathy Tobin some time in the summer of 1990 when he went to install a satellite TV system at the house where she was living. The child was very young at the time, “a toddler”, he told the court.

Within a short time — six weeks to a couple of months after they met — they had set up home together near Portsmouth.

They lived as a family and would take the boy to nursery.

Solicitor General Frank Mulholland asked if he had met Peter Tobin during this period.

Mr English said, “I believe he was living in Scotland, in Bathgate.”

Mr Mulholland asked whether the witness could remember Peter Tobin visiting.

Mr English said Tobin used to have access and, on occasions, take the child to Scotland and deliver him back to their home.

This happened sometimes once a month, sometimes more often.

“He would turn up and usually go back to Scotland for the weekend. On odd occasions, it was longer than that,” Mr English said.

The Solicitor General asked if there was one occasion when the child was not brought back to Portsmouth, but instead, they went to collect him from Bathgate.

“I arrived home from work to find Cathy in floods of tears. I asked her what the problem was,” Mr English explained.

As a result of what they were told, he said they left Portsmouth at around 6.30pm and arrived at Robertson Avenue in Bathgate in the early hours of the morning.

He and Cathy collected the child, staying no more than an hour before heading back to south. He thought they arrived back in Portsmouth around 11am and he went to work.

However, because there had been difficulties with timekeeping in the past, he was dismissed because of his late arrival.

He was paid to the end of the week and this was confirmed by National Health Contribution records.

He thought that would have dated the journey to Scotland overnight on February 18/19.

Cross-examined by Donald Findlay QC for Tobin, he agreed that, at that time, the accused would spend a considerable part of a weekend travelling in order to see his son.

He told Mr Findlay the distance by car between Portsmouth and Bathgate was around 400 miles.

Mr Findlay asked how the journey would be accomplished by public transport and the witness said that, if by bus, it would involve travelling from Portsmouth to Victoria in London to get a coach north.

He was aware that Tobin had a number of vehicles, which he used for the journey on some occasions.

The trial continues.

THE CHARGES

Tobin denies that on February 10, 1991, in Bathgate, he abducted or induced Vicky Hamilton and at his home in Bathgate, or elsewhere in Scotland, assaulted, drugged and struggled with her, compressed her neck, indecently assaulted her and murdered her.

He also denies that between February 10, 1991 and December 15 the same year, at his home, at St Andrew Square in Edinburgh, at an address in Margate and elsewhere in the UK he attempted to defeat the ends of justice by concealing Vicky’s body, depositing a purse belonging her with intent to mislead police, bisected her body then buried her body parts.

Tobin has lodged a special defence of alibi.