MOTHER’S DESPAIR
Family reveal the awful anguish of waiting in vain as hopes for justice flicker
The mother of Emma Caldwell lost her youngest daughter almost exactly 16 years ago. Almost exactly six years ago, police were ordered to reopen the investigation into her murder.
And on every day, of every month, of every year, Margaret Caldwell has hoped for justice for Emma and remembered her daughter, loved and loving, robbed of life at just 27.
Today, as the inquiry drags into another year, Mrs Caldwell says her despair and sense of betrayal have only grown while her hopes have faded.
“Perhaps there is someone, in some office somewhere, who knows what has happened,” she said. “If there is, I wish they would tell me.
“We were told to be patient, to wait for answers. We have waited 16 years and we have had no answers. They asked me to be patient. For what? For how long?
“We have had nothing, worse than nothing. We were given false hope.
“After all these years how can I believe justice will be done? I would be a fool to believe that. ButIdo.Ihaveto.
“If you had told me in 2005 that I would still be waiting by the phone 16 years later, waiting for news, I don’t know if I could have faced it. It seems cruel to have made me wait.”
Emma, who came from Erskine, Renfrewshire, was found dead in woods in rural South Lanarkshire on May 8, 2005. She had last been seen alive a month before on the streets of Glasgow, a 45-minute drive away but, after a two-year murder investigation, the case against four Turkish men collapsed.
Then, 10 years after Emma’s death, in April 2015, a newspaper revealed a forgotten suspect, Iain Packer, 48. He had been interviewed six times by detectives and, after changing his story several times, finally admitted knowing Emma, who had been working on the red-light streets of Glasgow after becoming addicted to drugs.
Her mother did her best to support her daughter, who was hoping to secure a place in rehab, through what would become her last years, but struggles to talk of them. She remembers her little Emmy J – short for Emma Jane – a girl with a love of horses and the kind, considerate young woman she grew up to become in spite of the drugs she turned to after the death of her big sister from cancer.
After Emma’s death, Mrs Caldwell was reassured that police were doing everything possible to find her daughter’s killer as they launched a sprawling investigation, featuring months of surveillance and undercover officers from Scotland and abroad. It cost up to £4 million but was wrongly focused on a Turkish café in Glasgow city centre and charges against four men would collapse.
Detectives insisted the unsolved murder inquiry remained open but, despite annual reviews, no further investigation took place for 10 years until journalists revealed the existence of forgotten suspect Iain Packer, who has always denied having anything to do with Emma’s death.
However, he was a habitual user of prostitutes; had known Emma; was said to have been obsessed by her; and was interviewed six times by detectives hunting her killer but never as a suspect under caution.
Eventually, during his final interview, he agreed to take officers to the place where, he said, he had taken Emma many times. Despite directing them to the forestry track in rural South Lanarkshire where her body had been found, he was released and never spoken to again. Another prostitute taken there by Packer, also directed officers to the location before describing how she had been terrified when he had flown into a violent rage in the pitch-black forest, miles from anywhere.
However, after the forgotten suspect was revealed, instead of immediately reopening the murder inquiry, Police Scotland launched an unlawful hunt for the journalists’ sources. The investigation into Emma’s death was not reopened for another seven weeks, and only then after direct intervention by then Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland.
Many officers involved in the original murder inquiry went on to enjoy successful careers with the Strathclyde force and Police Scotland, with several being promoted to senior ranks. Most have since retired. Then chief constable of Strathclyde Police Stephen House is now deputy commissioner at the Met in London.
In February 2020, Packer was jailed for two years for throttling his former
partner and, in court, it emerged he had three previous convictions for domestic violence against women. He was freed last month.
Meanwhile, Police Scotland and the Crown Office insist inquiries are ongoing but progress, if any, in the reopened investigation into Emma’s murder remains unclear.
Mrs Caldwell’s husband, Willie, died of cancer in 2011 at 62, an illness she blames on stress caused by Emma’s murder. His last conversations were about wanting justice for his daughter.
Mrs Caldwell said: “I’m not a policeman or a lawyer or a judge but why can’t this man be taken to court and let a jury decide? And if that is not possible, why can’t someone tell me.
“What can I do but carry on? For Emma. For Willie. The police will tell me I have to wait, like they always do, but I’m 72 now, how long can I wait? How long would they wait to see justice for their daughter?
I will wait forever.”