A POLICE officer is facing termination after having noisy sex in a church tower above a packed congregation attending New Year's Day morning mass.

Father Nikalaus Maier was preaching to early morning churchgoers when noises from the belltower interrupted him.

He telephoned the police when the lovers came down looking sheepish and scurried swiftly out the door, buttoning their clothes as they left.

A church official said: "My wife sat in the back near the vestry and called me to tell me about the grunts and groans that disturbed the sermon. It was scandalous."

The police officer faces almost certain dismissal.