Glasgow church where Peter Tobin hid victim's body to close

St Patrick's Church in Anderston confirmed it would be closing its doors in the near future due to operational costs and a shortfall in numbers attending the parish.

While a date has not yet been confirmed, the change is expected to happen within the next couple of years.

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The Daily Record reported that Canon Paul Gargaro, head of the Scottish Catholic Tribunal, said: "Over the past week we have shared in the parish the sad news that we are expecting to close in the next couple of years. Unfortunately, the numbers attending the parish, the financial challenges of rising bills, the falling number of priests, and the repair bill of almost £2 million that we are facing means that we cannot carry on much longer.

"We expect this process to take a couple of years, and in the meantime parish life will continue as normal. We need time to be sad that this is happening, time to mourn, but also time to celebrate the good that has been done in our parish and the faith that has been shared, and time to make the transition partnership with our neighbouring parishes."

The building was once the focal point of a murder scene following the disappearance of 23-year-old Angelika Kluk in September 2006. The Polish national, who was spending the summer in Scotland to fund her studies, had been staying in a room at the church while working as a cleaner. But after her loved ones failed to hear from her for a few days, she was reported missing.

It emerged that Angelika had befriended Peter Tobin, who was working as a handyman for the church after being released from jail for sexually assaulting two 14-year-old girls.

At the time, Tobin was hiding behind the false name of Pat McLaughlin. Angelika vanished on the same day she agreed to help him paint a shed and police suspicions soon fell on McLaughlin, who was an unknown sex offender to them.

Just hours after he was quizzed by cops over the student's disappearance, the 60-year-old vanished. Images were quickly released to the public by detectives in their desperate hunt to pin him down.

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She was found on September 29, 2006 - just five days after she went missing. Post-mortem examinations revealed Angelika had been bound and gagged, raped, battered with a piece of wood and stabbed in the chest 16 times.

When Tobin concluded the heinous acts, he dragged and dumped her helpless body into a chapel in the underground chamber of the church where it was concealed by floorboards. Tobin, originally from Johnstone in Renfrewshire, was arrested by cops in London after a nurse recognised his image from Scottish media coverage.

DNA tests went on to link him to Angelika's murder. Days after his arrest, Strathclyde Police launched a nationwide probe into his life and movements.

The operation soon linked him to the murders of two other missing girls, Vicky Hamilton, 15, and Dinah McNicol, 18. In 2007, his former home in Bathgate was searched over the disappearance of schoolgirl Vicky, who vanished from West Lothian on February 10, 1991.

No trace of her was discovered, however, her body was found 400 miles away from home in a separate search at another former address of Tobin's in Margate. There, in the garden, Vicky was found alongside Dinah, who vanished while hitch-hiking home from a music festival in Liphook, Hampshire, on August 5, 1991.

The murderer, who had cancer, had served a whole life order at HMP Edinburgh for the cruel killings and detectives believe Tobin was responsible for the deaths of many other young women and girls.

He died in hospital on October 8, 2022, at the age of 76.