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  Angelika Contempt Case to Proceed

BBC News [Scotland]
July 4, 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6269356.stm

Contempt of court action will be taken later this year against a Sunday newspaper over a story it ran shortly before the Angelika Kluk murder trial.

Associated Newspapers - publishers of the Mail on Sunday - are alleged to have potentially prejudiced the trial in its front page story of 4 February.

Angelika Kluk's body was found at the church in Anderston

Editor Christopher Williams and Allan Caldwell, the freelance reporter who wrote the story, also face charges.

They deny any wrong doing. No date has been fixed for the contempt hearing.

The newspaper had revealed details of a brief alleged affair between Polish student Ms Kluk and Father Gerry Nugent, 63, the parish priest at the St Patrick's church in Anderston, Glasgow, where she was raped, murdered and hidden under the floorboards.

Newspaper revelations

Peter Tobin, 60, who worked as an odd-job man at the church, is now serving a life sentence for raping and murdering Ms Kluk, 23, and concealing her body.

The contempt issue is to be considered by a three-judge court over four days later this year and is expected to be regarded as a test case for the media and its reporting of legal proceedings.

At a brief hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh on Wednesday, advocate depute Dorothy Bain, for the Crown, announced that witnesses would be called to give evidence.

Father Nugent was asked about the newspaper revelations during the murder trial.

He was later put on probation for a year and ordered to carry out 100 hours of community service after trial judge Lord Menzies ruled he had attempted to dodge questions put to him in the witness box

Tobin has to serve a minimum of 21 years before he can apply for parole.

 
 

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