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	Priest Sexually Harassed Me, Woman Tells Murder Trial By Rachel Williams The Guardian [United Kingdom] April 28, 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2067597,00.html A Roman Catholic priest who admitted having a sexual relationship with a Polish student whose body was later found under a chapel floor chased and harassed a church guitarist, a court heard yesterday. Sarah Howie, 45, also alleged that Father Gerard Nugent knew years ago of a trapdoor above the hole where Angelika Kluk's remains were found in September, despite his insistence he was unaware of its existence. The married mother of two denied the priest's claim that she also had a sexual relationship with him. Fr Nugent has told a jury trying handyman Peter Tobin for Ms Kluk's rape and murder that he had an affair with Mrs Howie in 1998 or 1999, shortly after he joined the chapel. He said they had been sexually intimate but never had intercourse. But she responded angrily at the high court in Edinburgh when advocate depute Dorothy Bain, prosecuting, told her of that claim. "No he didn't, no he didn't," Ms Howie said. "No sexual relationship with me whatsoever. "He chased me if you like, he harassed me but we never had any sexual relationship whatsoever." Earlier the court heard that when Ms Howie was tuning her guitar at St Patrick's church in Glasgow, Fr Nugent put his hand on her bottom. During questioning yesterday, she said the priest "definitely" knew about the trapdoor because he had spoken to her and a friend when they were looking down the hatch seven or eight years ago. "There was no carpet on the floor then. It was very visible. It did not take Einstein to work out where it was." Ms Howie, a home care coordinator with Glasgow city council, described how she and a friend went exploring after hearing tales of a crypt under the church. Fr Nugent, 63, who has since left his post at St Patrick's, gave them permission to look under the floor near the confessional box, she said. She claimed she and the other woman were kneeling at the trapdoor when he approached and said jokingly: "Oh, did you find any bodies?" Earlier in the trial, Fr Nugent denied knowing about the trapdoor at the time of 23-year-old Ms Kluk's death, and repeatedly told the court: "I know nothing about her death or the circumstances of her death." Mr Tobin, 60, denies raping and murdering Ms Kluk, who had been staying at the chapel house attached to the church and working as a cleaner to help finance her studies in Gdansk. He also denies hiding her body under the floor of the church. It is alleged he raped her, beat her on the head and struck her repeatedly with a knife. He also denies trying to pervert the course of justice and a breach of the peace at the church. He claims he had sex with Ms Kluk with her consent. The trial continues.
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