The family deserve justice most of all, but they also deserve to know what has happened in this inquiry and why
The former detective who uncovered the forgotten suspect has spoken of his bemusement as the reopened inquiry into Iain Packer drags into a seventh year.
Gerry Gallacher, a retired officer turned author, spent 18 months investigating the unsolved case before working with journalists to reveal how police hunting Emma Caldwell’s killer had interviewed Packer, who has always denied any involvement in her death, six times.
During the final interview, he agreed to show detectives a spot he had taken Emma to several times and gave directions as they drove into rural South Lanarkshire to an isolated forestry track. It was where her body had been found two years earlier. However, Packer was never spoken to again.
Gallacher, who was not involved with the original investigation before retiring in 2010 after 30 years with the police, said: “I couldn’t believe it or understand it six years ago. It is no easier to understand or believe now.
“I assume the officers charged with reinvestigating the case over the last six years have pursued a number of leads, but the evidence linking Iain Packer to Emma Caldwell that was put into the public domain six years ago remains unchanged.” Witness statements taken during the investigation told how Packer, whose habitual use of prostitutes cost him two marriages, had known Emma; how he had been infatuated, even obsessed, with her, scaring off other men who approached her; and how he was a violent man capable of flying into furious rages.
Gallacher said: “Interviewed by police six times, Packer changes his story every time before eventually directing detectives 30 miles out of Glasgow to the very spot, in the absolute middle of nowhere, where Emma had been killed and tells them that he had taken her there many times.
“Then, to my mind, inexplicably, he is allowed to go and is never interviewed again.”
Packer was not spoken to again as police, who had been criticised over a number of unsolved murders of prostitutes, concentrated their inquiry on Turkish suspects, in the frame after a surveillance operation on a café in Glasgow city centre.
However, allegedly incriminating statements taped during surveillance were entirely innocent, according to expert translators, and the case against them collapsed.
“Sometimes investigations gather a momentum of their own and trying to change its direction when so much has been invested in one line of inquiry can not only be difficult, but professionally fraught,” said Gallacher.
“Those in charge had convinced themselves it was the Turks. They could not, or would not, easily be convinced that a more obvious suspect was in front of them.
“Whatever new lines have been pursued over the last six years, the key evidence linking Packer to Emma Caldwell is the same now as it was then.
“It is not anyone’s job but a jury to decide on guilt or innocence after hearing the evidence but it is a job, in my opinion, a jury should have been asked to do long before now.
“Ultimately, the only opinion that matters is the Crown Office but after six years, a decision needs to be taken.
“The family of Emma Caldwell deserve justice most of all but they deserve to know what has happened in this inquiry and why. After all that has happened, that is the very least they deserve.”