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	Murder Jury Told Angelika Priest 'Lied' Glasgow Evening Times [Scotland] April 27, 2007 http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.1359394.0.murder_jury_told_angelika_priest_lied.php The priest who had sex with Angelika Kluk knew about a trapdoor in the church floor where her body was found, a murder trial heard today. Father Gerry Nugent, 63, has told the High Court in Edinburgh he didn't know about the hole in the floor of his church where the 23-year-old Polish student's body was found. But today parishioner Sarah Howie, 45, of Shawlands, Glasgow, told jurors the priest was wrong. Mrs Howie claimed Father Gerry knew seven or eight years ago about the trapdoor in the then bare floor which, last September, became the entrance to Angelika's temporary tomb. "The trapdoor was quite visible. There was no carpet on the floor then. It did not take Einstein to work out where it was," she said. Mrs Howie - who has been a regular worshipper at St Patrick's Church in Anderston for 14 or 15 years and was married there - described how she and a friend went exploring. They had heard tales of a possible crypt under the church, where former priests or bishops might be buried, and tunnels leading underground to Charing Cross. Father Gerry gave them permission to look under the floor near the confession box, she said. They took a torch and went into the void but found nothing of interest. Mrs Howie added: "He says to me in a joking manner Oh, did you find any bodies?' and we laughed and said Oh, no, nothing like that'." The exploration happened about seven or eight years ago, she said, just after Father Gerry came to St Patrick's. Earlier in the trial, defence QC Donald Findlay repeatedly asked Father Gerry, who admitted having sex with Angelika, if he had known about the trapdoor at the time of her death. The priest flatly denied it and repeatedly told the lawyer: "I know nothing about her death or the circumstances of her death." Today Mr Findlay asked Mrs Howie: "That priest, that man of God, lied not only to this court, he lied before his own God, if what you say is true." Mrs Howie replied: "Yes." On trial is church handyman Peter Tobin, 60, who denies raping and murdering Angelika and hiding her body under the church floor last September. The trial heard also how on October 6 last year Detective Inspector Andrew McMillan interviewed Tobin, who replied "no comment" to most of his questions about Angelika. The trial continues.
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