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	Priest Tells Angelika Murder Trial: I Had Sex... By Gordon McIlwraith Glasgow Evening Record [Scotland] April 5, 2007 http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_headline=priest-tells-angelika-murder-trial--i-had-sex- with-my-church-choir-guitarist-too&method=full&objectid=18860402&siteid=66633-name_page.html The priest at the centre of the Angelika Kluk murder trial has admitted having sex with a second woman. Father Gerry Nugent, 63, made his confession as defence QC Donald Findlay quizzed him about church guitarist Sarah Howie. The priest has already admitted having sex with Polish student Angelika, 22. But he denied being "consumed with jealousy" when the affair ended and insisted he had nothing to do with her death. The priest also told the court he had no knowledge of a hatch in the floor outside the church confessional box, where Angelika's body was found. However, the jury at the High Court in Edinburgh was told that Sarah Howie found the hatch years earlier and told the priest about it, according to a statement she made. She claimed that when he learned of the hatch's existence, Father Nugent joked: "Did you find any dead bodies?" During intense cross-examination, Mr Findlay branded the priest a "shameful" liar and accused him of a breach of trust. In response to numerous questions from Mr Findlay, the priest replied: "I can't remember." Eventually, the lawyer lost patience and asked: "Is there anything you want to tell us about the death of Angelika Kluk before I go on?" The priest replied: "I know absolutely nothing about the death of Angelika Kluk or the circumstances." Father Nugent has already told the jury he had sex with Angelika "three or four times" in 2005. She was living in the chapel house at St Patrick's Church in Anderston, Glasgow, on summer vacation from university in Poland. Father Nugent told the court that Sarah Howie was a musician who played at Mass, but they didn't get on. Mr Findlay said: "Why not? And you know that I know, father, so tell us the truth." Father Nugent said: "Sarah and I had a sexual relationship in 1999, brief, and that stopped and consequently we just stopped talking. "I have no recollection of it ending in a fight or disagreement. It just ended." The lawyer then asked him about an incident in a room at the church when he approached Ms Howie from behind, placed his hand on her backside and she told him to: "F*** off." Father Nugent replied: "No, it didn't happen." Under further close questioning by Mr Findlay, the priest - who had been at St Patrick's for eight years - insisted that he didn't know about the void under the hatch. But Mr Findlay said that about eight years ago, Ms Howie and a friend searched the church for secret passages and she told the priest about the confessional box hatch. The priest replied: "I didn't know about a trap door." Mr Findlay said: "If Sarah Howie gives evidence to the effect that you did know about the hatch, is there anything you can think of that happened between you that would have given her the motivation to lie?" Father Nugent said: "No." Angelika disappeared on Sunday September 24 last year. Her body was found on Friday September 29. St Patrick's is beside a medical centre and its CCTV cameras also cover part of the church. Mr Findlay played footage of the church at 2.30am on Monday September 25 when Father Nugent said he and a Russian student called Rebecca Dordi were the only people staying there. It showed four lights going on at the confession box end of the church then going off a couple of minutes later. Mr Findlay asked: "Were you in the area of the North Street end of the church at 2.30am - the area of the church where the body of Angelika Kluk by this time lay dead?" Father Nugent said: "I was not." Then, in an extraordinary exchange, Mr Findlay asked Father Nugent if he knew what perjury was. The lawyer tried to determine when the priest first discovered that Angelika's body had been found under the floorboards. But Father Nugent kept saying: "I can't remember." Mr Findlay produced a statement by parishioner Geraldine McGowan in which she told of Father Nugent's comments after the grim find under the church floor. Mr Findlay said: "Do you want me to go on?" Father Nugent replied: "Yes I do" and was confronted with Ms McGowan's statement, given just four days after the body was discovered. It said: "Father Nugent phoned me yesterday morning - October 1 - and told me it was definite that Angela had been found. He was absolutely distraught at that time. "He told me she had been found under a trap door by the confessional." Mr Findlay asked: "Who is the liar?" Father Nugent admitted: "I must have said that." Mr Findlay: "You have just lied to this jury and we have demonstrated that." Father Nugent: "I was not aware I was lying. If Geraldine said that I must have said that to her." The lawyer blasted: "How can you stand there and say to these ladies and gentlemen, 'I must have said that' when, after me giving you umpteen opportunities, you said - on oath - that it was months later you knew about the confessional?" Father Nugent suggested that must have been the first time he heard about the trap door. But he accepted that on October 1, he must have known the body had been found underneath it. The priest said he must have seen it on TV or in newspapers. He added: "I cannot remember exactly where or when. I cannot remember now." On his second day in the witness box, Father Nugent told the jury he discovered Angelika was on the pill while he was in her room. He saw the tablets on the window sill and found a used condom in a waste basket. At the time, Angelika was having an affair with married Martin MacAskill, 40. The priest admitted that he told Rebecca Dordi - who was also staying at his house - about his find because he was concerned that Angelika might get hurt. It happened while Rebecca was helping him sort out the church computer. As they worked on the equipment, the court heard that sexually explicit images suddenly appeared on the screen. Father Nugent recalled: "I said to Rebecca, 'Will you get this off now and not tell anyone about it?' That would have been the occasion when I shared that information with Rebecca." Mr Findlay asked: "Why did you betray Angelika so?" Father Nugent said: "I wasn't aware I was betraying her." Mr Findlay said it was a betrayal for anybody to do that, particularly a priest, but Father Nugent said he didn't see it that way. Mr Findlay said: "You are a priest and people come to you with their darkest secrets. "You breached the trust by telling Rebecca Dordi something that was none of her business, namely that Angelika was on the pill and using condoms in her room." Father Nugent said: "Yes." Mr Findlay said: "Isn't it the truth that after you discovered the nature of the relationship between Martin MacAskill and Angelika, you were consumed with jealousy?" Father Nugent said: "No." Mr Findlay said: "And that was why you were prying into that girl's private life in her bedroom." Father Nugent said: "I was never jealous. Because of what had happened between Angelika and myself I was displaying concern." Mr Findlay said: "You became cold to her and you were in a rage about her relationship with Martin MacAskill." Father Nugent said: "I was not. I could never get in a rage with Angela because I was still suffering from guilt about my own behaviour. I was concerned about what was happening." Mr Findlay said: "That's a shameful lie." Father Nugent said: "I am telling the truth. Inever felt cold towards her in my heart." The trial before Lord Menzies continues.
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