Father Gerry Nugent, formerly of St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, Anderston -- where Angelika’s body was found in 2006 -- was discovered dead yesterday by his housekeeper who arrived at his Govan home.

Nugent, 66, had no major previous health problems but the church last night said it appeared he had suffered a heart attack.

Police said there were no suspicious circumstances.

Archbishop Mario Conti, Archbishop of Glasgow, said: “I am shocked and saddened to hear of the sudden death of Fr Nugent. He wrote to me just before Christmas to let me know he was finding contentment in his retirement.

“Though his ministry will be forever linked to the terrible events surrounding the death of Angelika Kluk and his own shortcomings, it would be impossible to ignore the enormous compassion and pastoral care which marked his priesthood.

“He was a kind and welcoming pastor for four decades in Glasgow and his loss will be mourned by many within and far beyond the Catholic community.”

He gave his condolences to Fr Nugent’s family.

Nugent had operated an ‘open doors’ policy at the church and gave work and accommodation to Algelika’s killer Peter Tobin -- who pas­sed himself off as a handyman called Pat McLaughlin at that time -- as well as the 20-year-old murder victim.

When she went missing and later when her body was found, Fr Nugent took a lead role in appealing for information. But he admitted at Tobin’s trial to a drink problem and having had sex with a number of women.

He told the trial he had sex with Angelika three or four times, that he was “sexually intimate” with a parishioner and later admitted to a string of affairs.

Police were also aware that Fr Nugent would often trawl Glasgow’s red-light districts and Fr Nugent later spoke of picking up prostitutes and having “sex­ual fumbling with them” in the parochial house.

He was also questioned twice by police over the murder of Emma Caldwell, as well the murder of Leona McGovern in 1995, while it emerged that the late Cardinal Thomas Winning confron­ted the priest allegations of a sexual assault in 1993.

The priest was given 100 hours’ community work and put on probation for a year.

After the Angelika trial Fr Nugent resigned with Archbishop Conti issuing a public apology saying that while Nugent’s “open house” policy at St Patrick’s had resulted in many needy people being helped over the years, his conduct had fallen “well short” of that expected of every priest.

 

Could killer be Bible John?

Serial killer Peter Tobin was first convicted of murder in 2007 after being found guilty of raping and killing Polish student Angelika Kluk in Glasgow.

Ms Kluk’s body was found in September 2006 under the floorboards of St Patrick’s RC church, where Fr Nugent was the priest.

Tobin, originally from Johnstone, Renfrewshire, is also serving life for the murder of Falkirk teenager Vicky Hamilton more than 17 years ago.

And in December the 63-year-old was found guilty of the murder of Dinah McNicol, 18, who went missing six months after Vicky.

Detectives across the UK are now investigating dozens of unsolved murders that may have been carried out by Tobin.

Cases believed to be of interest to them include the murders of three women in Glasgow between 1968 and 1969, thought to have been victims of the scripture quoting suspect dubbed Bible John. Tobin has had links with the church throughout his life.

Patricia Docker, 25, Jemima McDonald, 32, and Helen Puttock, 29, were all murdered after being picked up at the Barrowland Ballroom. Tobin, who would have been in his 20s, was living in Glasgow at the time.