Almost 19 years after Emma Caldwell's body was found in remote woods, Iain Packer has been jailed for at least 36 years for her murder.

The 27-year-old's death in April 2005 had been one of Scotland's most high-profile unsolved murders.

After the jury delivered its verdict, BBC Scotland News revealed that the police missed the chance to catch Emma Caldwell's killer in the months after her murder because senior officers repeatedly dismissed him as a suspect.

BBC Scotland reporter Sam Poling interviewed Packer twice as part of an investigation which helped pave the way for his arrest.

The trial judge, Lord Beckett, told Packer his actions have had “terrible and enduring consequences” for his victims.

Emma's mother Margaret Caldwell told BBC Scotland News she could "breathe again" now that her daughter's killer had finally been found guilty.

Police Scotland has apologised for how the original inquiry was handled by what was then Strathclyde Police.

The writers for today's live coverage were Paul O'Hare and Craig Hutchison. The editors were Graeme Esson and Paul McLaren.

Catching a Killer: The Murder of Emma Caldwell will be shown on BBC Scotland on Wednesday at 21:00 and later on BBC Two at 23:15. It will also be available on the BBC iplayer.

You can listen to the podcast series Who Killed Emma? on BBC Sounds.

Judge Lord Beckett said Packer "pursued a campaign of violence and appalling sexual mistreatment of a very large number of women".

He added: "You have caused great harm to so many people as you indulged your pathologically selfish and brutal sexual desires."

Delivering his sentencing statement, he told Packer that he preyed on the vulnerable and caused "extreme and enduring suffering for so many women and their families".

"Emma was alone, in the dark, deprived of her phone and miles from any prospect of help," he said.

The judge said Emma was taken from her family at a time when she was trying to take steps to change her life - adding that she was killed in "truly terrifying circumstances".

Read more here.

During his sentencing statement, Lord Beckett credited investigative journalists who reported on the case.

He singled out BBC Scotland's Sam Poling and told Packer the award-winning reporter had "shone a light on your activities".

Afterwards, Mrs Caldwell's lawyer Aamer Anwar praised Sunday Mail journalists Jim Wilson and Brendan McGinty for revealing Packer was a "forgotten suspect" in the case.

Mr Anwar added: "Credit is also due to the BBC's Sam Poling for her work, that gave us more damning evidence against Packer."

Police missed the chance to catch Emma Caldwell's killer in the months after her murder because senior officers repeatedly dismissed him as a suspect.

The footage above is of a police interview and shows the killer being questioned about Emma's murder.

Four former detectives who were involved in the earliest stages of the inquiry say evidence of Iain Packer’s violent, abusive and predatory behaviour was known to police from the start of their investigation.

But they say senior officers told them not to pursue Packer and instead wrongly built a case against four Turkish men - who were then cleared.

The case was one of Scotland's most high-profile unsolved murders until a BBC Scotland investigation paved the way for Packer's arrest.

Read the full story here: How police missed the chance to catch Emma Caldwell's killer.

Magdalene Robertson, who has waived her right to anonymity, was indecently assaulted by Packer when she was 14 and raped by him when she was 15.

She said she had “mixed emotions” about the guilty verdict.

“Although he’s been convicted now, he’s been getting away with it for years,” she said.

“It was far too late for him to be charged – if he had been charged [earlier] it would maybe have saved a lot of other victims suffering.”

She said she gave a statement to police came in 2006 - but heard nothing more until after Packer was charged in 2022.

4 April 2005: Emma Caldwell is last seen in Glasgow city centre

8 May 2005: Her naked body is found in Limefield Woods near the village of Roberton, 40 miles south-east of Glasgow

22 June 2005: Packer is spoken to by police for the first time

4 August 2006: When police speak to Packer for a third time, he admits taking a prostitute to remote woods outside of Glasgow

13 March 2007: Packer gives a fifth statement to police and takes them to Limefield Woods

31 August 2007: Four Turkish men are charged with Emma’s murder

8 July 2008: The case against the Turkish men collapses

24 May 2015: Scotland’s lord advocate orders police to reopen the investigation

22 November 2018: Packer, who says he is seeking to clear his name, is interviewed by the BBC’s Sam Poling

27 February 2019: The BBC Disclosure documentary Who Killed Emma? is broadcast, several weeks after Sam Poling questions Packer a second time

24 February 2022: Packer is arrested in connection with Emma’s murder

28 February 2024: Packer is found guilty of Emma's murder and jailed for at least 36 years

Paul O'Hare
at the High Court in Glasgow

The lawyer for Emma Caldwell's family has been giving a statement on their behalf after Iain Packer was jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years for her murder.

Aamer Anwar has been highly critical of the initial murder investigation by what was then Strathclyde Police.

But he praises the lord advocate, prosecutors, police officers post-2015 and journalists, including the BBC's Sam Poling.

He says Poling's work “gave us more damning evidence against Packer”.

Anwar, who has represented the family since 2016, criticises former Strathclyde and Police Scotland chief constable Sir Stephen House and says the force’s counter-corruption unit “unlawfully spied” on officers who blamed Packer and tried to uncover newspaper sources.

The statement concludes: “Emma Caldwell mattered, the 25 women who spoke up mattered and the many whose voices were never heard in this court mattered. Today we honour all of them.”

Catching a Killer: The Murder of Emma Caldwell will be shown on BBC Scotland on Wednesday at 21:00 and later on BBC Two at 23:15. It will also be available on the BBC iplayer.

You can listen to the podcast series Who Killed Emma? on BBCSounds.

Aamer Anwar goes on to say Emma was a much-loved daughter and sister and the family’s lives were “torn apart for ever” by the murder.

The lawyer brands Packer “one of the UK’s worst sex offenders” and calls for a full judge-led public inquiry into the original police investigation in 2005.

Mr Anwar says some officers have “blood on their hands”.

He says Mrs Caldwell feels “betrayed” by the original investigation and also highlights Packer went on to carry out nearly 20 attacks after Emma’s murder.

Paul O'Hare
at the High Court in Glasgow

Image source, PA Media

Mr Anwar is flanked by Emma's mother Margaret and other members of her family as he reads out their statement.

A toxic culture of misogyny and corruption meant the police failed so many women and girls who came forward to speak up against Packer, the lawyer says.

"Instead of receiving justice and compassion, they were humiliated, dismissed and in some instances arrested, while the police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again.”

Image source, PA Media

Margaret Caldwell has said she felt “betrayed” by the original police investigation into her daughter’s murder.

She said she was “angry” it had taken so long for Packer to be brought to justice and that she wanted the truth to come out about what went wrong in 2005.

Mrs Caldwell thanked her lawyer, Aamer Anwar, for taking on her quest for justice and the media for its coverage of the case over the years.

Mr Anwar has been giving a statement on behalf of Emma's family outside court.

He is calling for a public inquiry and said officers who worked on the original investigation “must answer for their conduct”, especially as Packer went on to attack other women.

“This is the most prolific sex offender ever in the history of Scotland and one of the most prolific sex offenders in the history of the United Kingdom,” he added.

In 2015, Scotland's Sunday Mail newspaper named Packer as "a forgotten suspect" in the murder inquiry.

He then contacted the BBC in 2018 asking to tell his side of the story in an attempt to clear his name.

He was interviewed twice by Sam Poling, whose documentary Who Killed Emma? was broadcast the following year.

One of Packer's former partners told the murder trial that he was "white as a sheet" after the second interview.

"You could see something had gone badly wrong. It was as if it was all closing in on him," she said.

Just hours after the documentary was broadcast, she contacted police and told them she had been stalked and attacked by Packer.

He was arrested and jailed for two years in February 2020 after pleading guilty.

Then, two years later in February 2022, Packer was finally arrested and charged with Emma's murder.

“It’s about time, I thought, to give my own side to what’s happened."

That is what Iain Packer told BBC investigative reporter Sam Poling during their first interview in November 2018.

He had approached Ms Poling after she had filmed a documentary about Police Scotland.

Packer had been described in the press as a “forgotten suspect” in the murder of Emma Caldwell in 2005.

He said he wanted to clear his name, so agreed to be interviewed twice on camera by Ms Poling for a documentary about Emma’s murder.

During those interviews he said he was "not a violent person" – but Packer was later arrested and charged with the murder of Emma, who had been working as a sex worker in Glasgow.

When his trial began in January, Sam Poling was cited as a witness, and clips from the interviews she conducted with him were shown to the jury.

Iain Packer has now been found guilty of murdering Emma Caldwell and sentenced to a minimum of 36 years in prison.

The police investigation originally focussed on a Turkish cafe in Glasgow which was known to be frequented by a number of sex workers.

A small blood stain from Emma was found on a duvet, and in 2007 four Turkish men were charged with Emma's murder.

However, the case collapsed the following year after it emerged that conversations which were recorded during a covert surveillance operation had either been taken out of context or translated incorrectly.

The murder case then went cold until the lord advocate. Scotland's senior law officer, ordered police to reopen the investigation in 2015.

If you're just joining us, Iain Packer has been jailed for a minimum of 36 years for the murder of Emma Caldwell in 2005.

Police missed the chance to catch Emma Caldwell's killer in the months after her murder because senior officers repeatedly dismissed him as a suspect.

Four former detectives who were involved in the earliest stages of the inquiry say evidence of Iain Packer’s violent, abusive and predatory behaviour was known to police from the start of their investigation.

But they say senior officers told them not to pursue Packer and instead wrongly built a case against four Turkish men - who were then cleared.

The case was one of Scotland's most high-profile unsolved murders until a BBC Scotland investigation paved the way for Packer's arrest.

Read the full story here: How police missed the chance to catch Emma's killer

We're expecting a statement on behalf of Emma Caldwell's mother soon.

But Margaret Caldwell previously told BBC Scotland News she could “breathe again” after her daughter’s killer was found guilty.

Mrs Caldwell said: “When they found Emma’s body, and they came in and told me they had found her body, I just took this huge breath in and now I feel as if I can let it out.

“I can breathe again and go on.”

She said the guilty verdict would allow the family to be happy again.

“She will always be in our thoughts. She will always be there. She will always be my Emma.”

Following on from the police apology, Scotland’s Crown Office and Prosecution Service (COPFS) says it carried out a full independent investigation of “all allegations of potential criminality involving police officers” in the original Emma Caldwell murder inquiry.

Prosecutors also considered how detectives came to charge four Turkish men with her murder in 2007.

A COPFS statement said: “Following careful consideration of the facts and circumstances, Crown Counsel concluded that there was insufficient evidence of criminality on the part of any police officer involved in that investigation.

“As in all cases, the Crown reserves the right to proceed in the future should further evidence become available.”

Image source, Police Scotland

We reported earlier how Police Scotland has apologised for how the original murder investigation was handled by what was then Strathclyde Police.

Police Scotland said the reinvestigation of the case had been “extremely challenging”.

It said it was “without doubt the largest police inquiry of recent times in Scotland”.

This involved gathering and reviewing more than 30,000 documents and statements, as well as more than 23,000 productions.

New forensic tests were carried out and new witnesses were identified and interviewed.

The force described Packer as “a calculating sexual predator who targeted women over many years”.

Image source, Police Scotland

The jail sentence handed to Iain Packer is the second-longest in Scottish legal history.

He has been ordered to serve at least 36 years in prison before he can apply for parole.

That is the same sentence handed down to Andrew Innes last year for the murders of Bennylyn Burke and her two-year-old daughter Jellica.

The longest sentence imposed by a Scottish court came in 2014, when serial killer and rapist Angus Sinclair was jailed for a minimum of 37 years.

He had been found guilty of killing teenagers Helen Scott and Christine Eadie in what became known as the World's End murders.

Lord Beckett thanks the jury for their “extraordinary service” and excuses them from jury duty for life.