(648)  ANGELICA KLUK CASE

The sensational trial of Peter Tobin (60) for the rape and murder of Polish student Angelica Kluk (23) in a Glasgow Catholic church attracted enormous media attention from its beginning on 23 March 2007 until its conclusion in a guilty verdict on 4 May.  An extraordinary feature of the case was the evidence about the victim’s many friendships with a number of older men: including an affair with a married man, a complex relationship with the church priest, and golf lessons from Sheriff Kieran McLernan (65) from Aberdeen, who gave evidence at the trial on 25 April about his meeting with Angelika on the evening before (in all probability) she was fatally attacked.  After the verdict Tobin was revealed to be a registered sex offender who had somehow managed to escape police supervision and ended up working under an assumed identity in the church where Kluk was also staying in the summer of 2006.  The church priest, Father Gerry Nugent (63), was later found guilty of contempt of court for prevaricating while giving evidence during the Tobin trial, and appeared to be disowned by the Catholic Church in Scotland despite self-confessed alcoholism.