Angelika Kluk murder case

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The Angelika Kluk murder case was a criminal trial that took place at the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, between March 23 and May 4, 2007.^[1]

The result of the trial was that the defendant Peter Tobin was found guilty of raping and murdering Angelika Kluk, and was sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum of 21 years. In sentencing Tobin, Judge Lord Menzies described him as "an evil man".^[2]

In September 2006, Peter Tobin was working as a church handyman in St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, Anderston, Glasgow. He had assumed the name "Pat McLaughlin" to avoid detection by police and probation officials as he was still on the sex offenders register following his 1994 rape and assault of two teenage girls in Hampshire.

Angelika Kluk (1983-2006) was a Polish languages student on a working vacation in Glasgow, who was last seen in the company of Tobin. She was beaten, raped, and stabbed, then concealed in a void beneath the floor near the confessional box in St. Patrick's Church. She had been missing for several days when police found her body on 29 September. Tobin was arrested shortly after.^[3]^[4]

The six-week trial resulted from the evidence gathered under the supervision of Detective Superintendent David Swindle of Strathclyde Police and took place at the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, between March 23 and May 4, 2007.^[5]

The trial judge was Lord Menzies; the prosecution was led by Advocate Depute Dorthy Bain, and the defence by Donald Findlay QC.^[6] Tobin denied raping and murdering Ms Kluk and claimed she had consented to having sex with him.

During the trial, former parish priest Father Gerry Nugent repeatedly changed his story, evading questions about his relationship with Ms Kluk and how he had come to know the location of her body. Father Nugent was eventually found guilty of contempt of court by prevarication, and sentenced to one hundred hours of community service and one year of probation.^[7]