Serial killer Peter Tobin is said to be recovering in hospital after being attacked in prison.

Tobin,  who is serving three life sentences for murder, is understood to have been attacked at HMP Edinburgh yesterday.

The Scottish Prison Service confirmed an incident had been reported to police.

Tobin lived in Station Road, Portslade, and in Marine Parade, Brighton, in the late 1980s

The 68-year-old is serving a life sentence for raping and murdering Polish student Angelika Kluk, 23, and hiding her body under the floor of a Glasgow church in 2006.

He was also convicted of murdering 15-year-old schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton, of Redding, near Falkirk, in 1991, and 18-year-old Dinah McNicol in the same year.

Their bodies were found 17 years later, buried in the garden of his former home in Margate, Kent.

Police examined hundreds of other unsolved murder cases to see if they could be linked to Tobin.

The operation, codenamed Anagram, was launched in 2006 and wound down in 2011.