‘Police have blood on their hands’ after sex worker’s killer dodged justice for 19 years
SENIOR police officers were accused of having blood on their hands last night after a sex worker’s killer was finally convicted almost two decades after her murder.
Serial rapist Iain Packer was yesterday jailed for a minimum of 36 years after being found guilty of strangling Emma Caldwell in 2005 and leaving her naked body in woodland 40 miles from her home.
Jurors also found him guilty of another 32 charges, including 11 rapes and multiple counts of sexual violence against a total of 22 women.
Judge Lord Becket said Packer, 51, killed Ms Caldwell in the ‘most terrifying of circumstances’ and accused him of carrying out an ‘extreme campaign of sexual violence’.
The victim’s mother Margaret, a 76-yearold widow, accused police chiefs of ‘betraying’ her daughter and demanded they now answer for the ‘misogyny, corruption and arrogance’ in the handling of the case. Police Scotland was forced to issue a grovelling apology in the aftermath of the verdict as senior officers acknowledged they had let down victims.
Outside the High Court in Glasgow, Mrs Caldwell’s lawyer Aamer Anwar said: ‘The police failed many women and girls who came forward to speak up. Instead of getting justice they were humiliated and dismissed, whilst gifting freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again.’
Packer had been interviewed six times by police investigating the murder of Ms Caldwell, a 27-year-old sex worker who went missing in Glasgow, and even led officers to the remote spot where her body had been found.
But he was not brought to justice until nearly 19 years after her death. Instead, police pursued a £4million botched prosecution of four innocent Turkish men.
Mrs Caldwell wept as Packer was convicted, and later said: ‘ When they told me they had found Emma’s body… I just took this huge breath in and now I feel as if I can let it out.’
Her husband William did not live to see their daughter’s killer caught because he died in 2011, but she promised him on his death bed that she would continue to fight for justice.
She also accused police of a ‘shameful betrayal’ of the women attacked by Packer during his decades of sexual offending, often characterised by choking his victims. Many were vulnerable sex workers and some have since died. Her lawyer said officers involved in the original investigation were ‘suspected of criminality’ and should face prosecution.
Mr Anwar said: ‘A toxic culture of misogyny, corruption and arrogance meant that police officers effectively allowed a serial rapist to prey on vulnerable women. Margaret believes these officers have blood on their hands and must now answer for their betrayal.’
Her daughter, who developed a drug addiction after the death of her older sister, had been a prostitute in Glasgow.
Several women had raised concerns about Packer, a man who regularly used sex workers and had a reputation for aggression. He started using prostitutes when he was 18 and would pick up women as often as he could afford. This was how he first met Ms Caldwell. He was said to be infatuated by her and would drive around looking for her and scaring off other potential clients.
In April 2005 he lured her from Glasgow and strangled her. Five weeks later her body was found dumped more than 40 miles away in Limefield Woods near Biggar, Lanarkshire.
Circumstantial evidence led to suspicion wrongly falling on staff and patrons at a Turkish cafe, and in August 2005 a surveillance operation began. Detectives, who had enlisted the assistance of a Turkish- speaking colleague, became convinced in May 2006 that the surveillance had detected incriminating conversations.
But, in an astonishing blunder, the translations they based their certainty on were flawed.
Incredibly, when a Sunday newspaper named Packer in 2015, branding him the ‘forgotten suspect’, police attention focused on finding the journalists’ sources.
A reinvestigation into Ms Caldwell’s murder was launched in June 2015, and Packer was charged seven years later.
‘They humiliated and dismissed victims’