Angelika: Facts as brutal as fiction

Findlay summed up the case when he asked the jurors: "Don't you think it is at least a possibility they would say, go away and come back with something people will believe?'"

Indeed, the cast of witnesses threw up everything the most rabid tabloid editor could want for a story, with front page headlines of sex in churches and dramatic courtroom confrontations. The trial has gripped Scotland like none sincethatofLukeMitchellforthe murder of Jodi Jones in the same court in 2005. Tobin's verdict knocked the outcome of the Scottish Parliament elections off almost every front page.

However, behind the dramatic headlines lay the story of how Polish student Angelika Kluk, 23, came to lose her life in a frenzied, sexual assault at the hands of "evil" Tobin.

Ultimately, Tobin was snared by DNA evidence after he tied up Kluk, gagged, raped and beat her over the head six times, fracturing her skull and stabbed her 16 times in the chest, then dragged her through the Glasgow church where she was staying and dumped her body through a supposedly "secret" trapdoor intoadustyvoidbeneaththe floorboards.

Compared with the brutality of her lastmoments,Kluk'slifeseemed straightforward when she bade farewell to Skoczow, southern Poland, where her father Wladislaw, 51, brought her up from the age of five after her mother walked out on the family.

Her love of Scotland was behind her move to Glasgow in 2005, after she had previously enjoyed a blissful summer holiday the previous year staying with her sister Aneta, 28, who lived in the east end of the city, in a break from her studies of Scandinavian languages at the University of Gdansk.

However, beneath Angelika's friendly exterior lurked a far more complex character that only partially emerged at the trial. The court heard how she had developed relationships with two older men, firstly having an affair with chauffeur Martin Macaskill, 40, that his distraught wife Annie angrily demanded he finish, and then came allegations of a sexualencounterwithFatherGerry Nugent, 63, who was alsorevealed during the trial to be an alcoholic.

Angelika, a devout Catholic, lived in a small, rent-free room in a chapel house at the priest's church, St Patrick's in Anderston, a grimy area of the city notorious for prostitution.

Why she chose to stay in the city's red-light district instead of safely with her sister Aneta has never been fully explained. It could be that after finally escaping her home town she was fiercely proud of her independence, but perhaps there were deeper issues with her family which urged her to take her life in a different direction.

The question will linger as to how a young woman could have felt safe in a church frequented by a diverse array of people, thanks to Nugent's "open door" policy of allowing individuals in need and groups to use it as a meeting point.

Angelika, also known as Angela during her time in Scotland, fell in with the priest who her sister referred to as a "Jekyll and Hyde" character. She relied heavily on Nugent for cash when she ran short, including £1500 to buy a laptopcomputer,payingforflightsto Poland and on one occasion, the court heard, using his credit card details when she was desperately short of funds.

NUGENT, who claimed in court that he had had a sexual relationship with Angelika, said she was delighted with the room he gave her and skipped around it when she saw it. He added: "She very much integrated herself into the community because she was a fairly serious student she did love life, she did love Scotland."

However, the priest's policy of allowing so many groups from different backgrounds to use the church as a base would ultimately result in Angelika's brutal murder.

Last May, a homeless man calling himself Pat McLaughlin - in reality this was Peter Tobin - arrived and won over Denis and Cathy Curran, who ran the Loaves and Fishes charity providing much-needed support for the homeless from a base at the church.

According to the Currans, they made little attempt to verify the man's identity, other than taking his photograph after Cathy voiced suspicions about him.

Althoughthatphotographwould prove crucial in helping to unmask Tobin'srealidentityafteramissing person's hunt was launched after Angelika went missing in September last year and Tobin fled to London after the murder, a simple check with the police would have discovered "Pat McLaughlin" didn't exist.

Tobin had recently served 10 years of a 14-year prison sentence for horrific attacks on two teenage girls in England. He lured the victims, aged 14 and 15, to his flat in Havant, Hampshire, before holding them captive at knifepoint. He forced them to take sedatives, then rapedonewhileshewaspartially conscious and indecently assaulted the other. He was only arrested after members of the Jesus Fellowship Church in Coventry, where he sought refuge, called police after seeing his face on a Crimewatch TV appeal.

Nugent thought Tobin was "great" and the handyman quickly won the priest's respect, too - Nugent even giving Tobin hisown key. Tobin then befriended Angelika, who helped him out with odd jobs around the church, to the extent that he called her his "wee apprentice".

Aneta was annoyed to discover her sister's affair with Macaskill, claiming "she was worth much more". But in court she branded Nugent's claims Angelika had sex with him as lies.

Angelika's diaries showed how she waseasilywooedbycharismatic Macaskill,whoshefellforwhile babysittingforafamilyofRussian tourists he was driving around Scotland. She wrote in one entry: "It is a pity most nice men are already taken. He is not too old either, merely 40." Following another clandestine meeting with Macaskill, she wrote: "I have never missed anyone as much as I missed Martin, even though he was here just a short time ago."

The trial heard they had sex in the church house and in a shower, and that Macaskill even took Kluk back to his marital home in Inverkip, Renfrewshire.

Anne Macaskill, who was "upset and angry" after discovering her husband's affair, demanded that he stop seeing Angelika - but he did not, even sending thestudenttextmessagesafterthe couple took a holiday abroad shortly before she vanished. Anne also discovered he used a Gaelic term of endearment,"a ghràidh", for Angelika - a phrase he had also used for his wife.

When Nugent found out about the relationship he too was "incandescent with rage", although by that time Angelika, grappling with her faith amid the affair, admitting in her diaries that "marriage is a sacred thing, but I have my feelings too".

Nugent says that Kluk looked upon him as a "father figure", which helped explain her platonic friendship with SheriffKieranMcLernan,65.The church-goer took her to a golf driving range after discovering their shared love for the sport. He hugged her and gave her a present of a dreamcatcher the night before her death.

Dr Cynthia McVey, a psychologist at Glasgow Caledonian University, said: "Kluk's father had potentially protected her and if the trustworthy and supportive men in her life were older as she was growing up she is more likely to have found herself in relationships with older men.

"If you are also young and new to a country and find older, respectable and honourable men are paying you considerable attention, then that actually could be very seductive.

"Unfortunately, we can be very judgemental with young women who have different relationships with older men. Unfortunately, she has fallen foul of Tobin and it has ended tragically."

Russian student Rebecca Dordi gave evidence in court that she saw Angelika being "flirty" with Tobin as they painted a shed together the night before she disappeared on September 24, though therewaslittleotherevidenceto convince the jury of the allegation.

Meanwhile, Macaskill, who raised the alarm and searched the church after his lover failed to return his calls, told the court he "still loved" Kluk.

He was clearly shocked by the extent of Angelika's affectionate diary references to him and reacted angrily when Findlay asked if his wife, Anne, could have plotted the murder. He retorted: "Never. What a question." When the QC again pressed the issue, suggesting that his wife had been trying for weeks and monthstoendtherelationship, Macaskill replied: "Yes Mr Findlay, but that does not make her a violent person, which she is not."

Macaskill listened intently last week in court as Findlay that Nugent's evasiveness over whether he knew about the trapdoor which led to the void whereKluk'sbodywashidden suggested he already knew about the murder. The QC also tried to suggest Matthew Spark-Egan, a vagrant who was sleeping in the church, could have been involved.

However, Findlay's attempts to divert the blame failed, mainly because there was no DNA evidence, but also because he failed to lodge a special defence of incrimination against the three before the trial. The judge, Lord Menzies, instructed the jury to ignore Findlay's claims about the vagrant, the priest and the jealous wife as they were not implicated.

Findlay also clashed with Sheriff McLernan, who accused him of "misleading the jury" over his evidence about the timing of his last meeting with Angelika.

Findlay remained in bullish form during his closing speech onThursday,usingemotive language to muddy theDNA evidence that linked Tobin to the crime in an attempt to convince the jury his client was innocent.

Meanwhile, Findlay used the relationships revealed in court to suggest to the jury Tobin had also enjoyed a "consensual" sexual relationship with Angelika, lodging a special defence before the trial on the issue.

He also suggested plastic sheeting and bags found with Angelika's body could be open to contamination of the DNA from other people using the church - but the QC offered no explanation of who those people could be, telling the jurors: "Don't imagine you know the picture and then try to find the evidence to support it."

Experts had discovered Levi jeans, which had regularly been worn by Tobin, in a church rubbish bin, finding the left knee heavily bloodstained - as if somebody had been kneeling in a pool of blood which had a "one in a billion" chance of having come from anyone other than the victim.

Bloodstains on a table leg found propped up against a wall at the church also matched Angelika's DNA, and fingerprints from Tobin were also found on plastic sheeting and a plastic bag found on top of Angelika's body.

However, Findlay pointed out that Tobin's prints were not found on the knife said to have been used in the murder, and added that it was unlikely the killer would have remained behind to help work on a garage, as Tobin did.

Hanging over Tobin's defence was his decision to travel to London by bus on September 26, two days after Kluk went missing. Her body was discovered when a more thorough search of the church was carried out after Tobin's real identity became known via the photograph provided by the Loaves and Fishes charity.

It emerged during the trial that Angelika, whose body was found on September 29, may have been still alive when Tobin dumped her in the space below the church floor.

In one final piece of drama, Tobin was arrested at the National Neurology and NeurosurgeryHospitalinLondon where he had feigned illness under the name "James Kelly".

Suspiciousdoctorsthenalerted policewhodispatchedanofficer, dressed as a male nurse, to verify his identity without attracting suspicion. WhenConstableAlanMurray approached him, Tobin greeted him with the words: "I knew you were police. I am relieved you are here."

Forensic psychology expert, Professor Vincent Egan, said Findlay had tried "everything" to defend Tobin, but faced overwhelming DNA evidence.

He said: "He tried to plant the seeds of doubt in the jury's minds by saying there were a number of suspects, but the jury had to base their deliberations on facts and not his emotive language. People try to blame the victim and it's a dirty trick in court when somebody tries to besmirch somebody's reputation, particularly when something sexual happens in a case."

EgandescribedTobinasa "canny" rather than a scheming murderer as he made mistakes attempting to distance himself from the horrific crime. "He is probably quite canny, but quite often in these cases it's not cleverness. It's actually more about having the audacity to commit the crime," Egan said.

When the jury returned their verdict after just three-and-a-half hours of deliberations, Lord Menzies's damning analysis of Tobin's actions were a chilling echo of what the judge at Winchester Crown Court told him 13 years earlier. He had branded Tobin's attacks on the girls as an "appalling incident" and "the worst I have ever come across".

Sentencing Tobin last week, Lord Menzies said: "In my time in the law, I have seen many bad men and heard evidence about many terrible crimes. But I have heard no case more tragic, more terrible than this one.

"What you did to Angelika Kluk was inhuman. To bind her hands, gag her so tightly that her face was misshapen when her body was found, to rape her, beat her about the head repeatedly, about her chest and body, and then drag her through the church and dump her under the floorboards as so much rubbish. All this shows utter contempt and disdain for the life of an innocent young woman with her whole life ahead of her. You are in my view an evil man."

It's likely the answers to the questions about how Tobin could strike again will come too late for his victim's sister and father, who endured five weeks of Angelika Kluk's private life being laid bare across a courtroom.