Sex claims rock Catholic Church murder trial
Pastor Dale Morgan
Sex claims rock Catholic Church murder trial*
Monday April 09, 2007
By Karin Goodwin
GLASGOW - The small church of St Simon's in Glasgow is always packed on
a Sunday. Yesterday it was overflowing as the faithful celebrated the
holiest day of the Catholic year.
Glasgow's growing Polish immigrant population favours St Simon's because
Mass is said in their own language.
It is also where the congregation of nearby St Patrick's must now
worship. That church has been closed since last September, when the body
of a Polish student was discovered under the floor near the confessional.
Angelika Kluk, 23, was bound and gagged and she had been beaten.
It was a shocking discovery, but now Scotland is agog at the
extraordinary revelations of illicit sex and alcoholism that have been
made during the trial of her alleged killer, Peter Tobin, a handyman at
the church. All the more so, since the man who admits sleeping with Kluk
and to having a drink problem is Father Gerard Nugent, the priest at St
Patrick's.
Kluk, who was studying Scandinavian languages at Gdansk University, was
spending the summer in Glasgow to earn money to continue her studies.
It was her second summer in the city where her sister, Aneta, 28, also
lives. The student had struck a deal with Nugent, 63, that she would
clean the church in return for accommodation in a small room in the
chapel house.
It seemed an ideal arrangement. But when Nugent took the witness stand
at Edinburgh High Court, he confessed to breaking his vows of chastity
by having sex with Kluk. The relationship, he claimed, was short, just a
couple of weeks over the end of August and beginning of September.
"I felt guilty," said the priest. "I felt ashamed and I was disgusted
with myself. I take full responsibility. I knew it was wrong and I knew
I was doing wrong. I knew I had to stop that part of the relationship."
He denied that he had been in love with the student and conceded he had
betrayed her trust. He also admitted that he had been an alcoholic 10
years ago and started drinking again around the time he met Kluk.
Kluk had been missing for five days before her body was found on 29
September. Strathclyde Police found it in a void under the floorboards
close to the confessional of St Patrick's. The space was easily accessed
by a trap door.
Peter Tobin, 60, did odd jobs at the church using the name Pat
McLaughlin. He had gone missing shortly after her disappearance, but was
arrested in October and accused of rape and murder.
The prosecution claims he covered Kluk's mouth with tape and bound her
hands before repeatedly striking her with a piece of wood or similar
object, stabbing her with a knife and then concealing the body.
He is also charged with trying to pervert the course of justice by
telling police he was called Patrick McLaughlin, and by claiming to
staff at the National Neurology and Neurosurgery Hospital in London that
his name was James Kelly.
Tobin denies all charges and has lodged a special defence stating that
he had consensual sex with Kluk.
Kluk's love life was complicated. She had a 40-year-old married
boyfriend, Martin MacAskill, a chauffeur who called her Angela and whose
wife knew of their relationship.
"I always got the impression they were friends," Martin MacAskill told
the court when questioned about her relationship with the priest.
Kluk's sister Aneta did not approve of the relationship with MacAskill.
But on September 25 she and MacAskill went together to St Patrick's to
look in Kluk's room, where they found her purse, her passport and a
diary entry recording her love for MacAskill. There was also a ticket
for a flight to Poland. She was due to return in October.
Aneta Kluk had harsh words for Nugent. She branded the priest an
alcoholic, described him as "a Jekyll and Hyde character" and dismissed
as "outrageous" his claims to have slept with her sister.
There were more accusations in store for Nugent. Tobin is represented by
one of Scotland's highest-paid QCs, Donald Findlay. In court, he called
the priest a "coward and a liar" and accused him of knowing that Kluk's
body had been concealed beneath the floor of his church during the five
days she was believed missing.
Throughout, the priest repeated: "I was not responsible for the death
and I know nothing about the circumstances concerning the measure of death."
The trial, which is expected to last six weeks, will resume tomorrow.
- INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY