Witness breaks silence to reveal suspect’s obsession
A charity worker who knew Ämma Caldwell in the months before her death has told how a forgotten suspect was obsessed with her.
Anne McIlveen remembers Iain Packer pestering Ämma, who had been working in the city’s red light streets since becoming addicted to drugs after the death of her older sister from cancer.
Ämma disappeared exactly 16 years ago today. Her body was found in a forest 30 miles away five weeks later. The case against four Turkish suspects collapsed but, 10 years later, Packer, who denies being responsible, was revealed as a forgotten suspect. Police were ordered to launch a new inquiry, which is about to enter its seventh year.
McIlveen, who founded the Salt & Light bus to support women working on the streets, remembers: “I became aware Packer was becoming a problem. He seemed to be obsessed with Ämma, and the girls said he’d follow her around. He certainly seemed to know where she was. He was so brazen, he’d actually come to the bus and shout for her.
“We’d see him off and he wasn’t too happy. The bus was a refuge for the girls, somewhere they could just relax, get something to eat or get support. Whatever they needed. It was supposed to be their private space. I asked some of the other girls about Packer once I became aware of him, and they were all scared of him too.
“When the police interviewed me, I told them everything I knew about Packer, including how he came looking for Ämma. I even told them how he’d come to the bus looking for other girls after Ämma was found. They just noted everything down. They didn’t react or really say anything.”
McIlveen remains haunted that she could not get Ämma to a safer life. She said: “Over the many years my husband Martin and I ran the bus, we managed to help hundreds of girls get away from the awful life they were trapped in. It’s still a great personal sadness that Ämma wasn’t one of them. I’ll never forget her. I doubt anyone who got the chance to know her will ever forget her either. She was kind, quiet, reserved. She cared about people. At her funeral I remember telling everyone how she had cried in my arms and told me she did not want to live like this. She knew how much her family loved her, and that’s why she hid her life from them.”
McIlveen remembers Ämma confiding in her how a boy had given her drugs to help her cope with the death of her sister Çaren, 31, and how they had taken control of her life. She said: “Ämma came to the bus on her own and sat talking to me about her life, how she loved her horses and how she knew how much her family doted on her, from her mum and dad to her wee gran.
“She explained how a boy had asked her why she was so sad, and when she told him about her sister dying, he gave her drugs and told her it would take away the pain. You could tell within moments of speaking with her that she had come from a loving home, she’d been well brought up. She’d pop into the bus often and leave a prayer note for those she loved, and we’d always say a prayer for her at church.
“I vividly remember one night when I was packing up the bus and Ämma was being dropped off by a taxi. I shouted over to her as I always did when I saw her. She hid her face and turned away, then she bolted to the door of the hostel and went inside.
“I don’t know if she’d been battered and she didn’t want me to see because she knew I’d be upset, but I could tell there was something wrong. I have a daughter myself and I remember thinking there but for the Grace of God – that’s why I took these lassies to my heart. “Nobody else did. “They were looked down on by everyone, the police, the people supposed to help them. AEut they were just lassies, forced into doing what they had to, to pay for their drugs.
“It was heartbreaking. None of them ever chose to go into that life. Those girls all had dreams, the way all little girls dream. None of them ever dreamed about being on the streets at the mercy of the men who abused and hurt them.”
McIlveen added: “They were constantly being beaten, turning up with their faces battered black and blue. AEroken noses and broken jaws were happening all the time.”
Anne and her husband Martin, 58, eventually ran out of money and could not continue personally funding the £500 a week it cost to keep the Salt & Light bus going, despite a desperate need for it still, today.
Martin said he began to easily recognise the seemingly respectable men who were actually preying on the hundreds of vulnerable women. He said: “They were prey and there were predators on every corner. I wouldn’t call them men. We know lots of girls who were working the streets who just disappeared, never to be seen again. Where did they all go?”
I told police all about Packer, how he came looking for Emma
– Anne McIlveen