Emma Caldwell suspect 'attacked woman in same woods'

Emma Caldwell's body was found in May 2005

A woman has come forward claiming she was attacked twice by a man later identified as a prime suspect in the murder of Emma Caldwell.

She claims one of the attacks happened in the same remote woods where Ms Caldwell's body was found in 2005.

The woman, who worked as a street prostitute, told police the man who attacked her was Iain Packer.

She also named him in a "Beware Book" used by street workers to warn others against violent and abusive clients.

Emma Caldwell had been a sex worker in Glasgow's red-light district when she disappeared on 4 April 2005.

The 27-year-old's body was found five weeks later, 40 miles away in woods near Roberton in South Lanarkshire.

She was naked and had been strangled.

Four Turkish men were arrested and charged with her murder, however the case later collapsed and they were all released.

Sixteen years later no-one has been convicted of Emma's murder.

A BBC investigation has now discovered at least four sex workers told police they were also taken to the same remote woodland by a client in the months before Emma was killed.

Two of the women said they were forced to strip and were left terrified by him. All identified the same man as being their alleged attacker.

The man they all picked out from police photobooks is 48-year-old Iain Packer.

Mr Packer was questioned six times by police during the investigation into Emma's murder and admitted to police that he had taken her and at least five other women to the remote woods for sex.

In 2019 he featured in a BBC Disclosure programme, during which he insisted to journalist Sam Poling that he had never been violent towards any women and denied having killed Emma Caldwell.

Days after the interview, he was arrested and later convicted for attacking his former partner by choking her.

One woman, who spoke to the BBC for a new podcast series investigating the murder said that she identified her attacker to police in 2005 and also named the man in a logbook kept by a drop-in support service for women involved in street prostitution.

A BBC investigation has discovered at least four sex workers told police they were taken to the same remote woodland

The logbook, known as the 'Beware Book', was a collection of warnings from prostitutes to other women about dangerous clients.

The woman, who asked not to be identified, has told the BBC that she was taken down to the Roberton woods by a client - whom she later identified as Packer - where he was sexually violent with her.

She said she named him in the logbook in the months before Ms Caldwell went missing and again to police in the weeks after her body was found.

She said he also picked her up from Glasgow's red-light district and took her to Pollok Park in the south of the city where he raped and beat her.

For the past four years, I have investigated the murder of Emma Caldwell.

I have examined closely the police's botched inquiry into who killed her, and I have exposed a man whom I grew to believe was a prime suspect.

When I began working on a podcast into Emma's case, I wanted to try to speak with as many women as possible who had lived and worked in the same world she did.

Emma had turned to prostitution to fund her drugs habit and lived in a women's hostel in Glasgow. She had few friends but I managed to track down a number of those whom she was close with.

I never expected to hear what I did. There wasn't a single woman I spoke to who hadn't been raped while selling sex on the streets of Glasgow. There wasn't a single woman who hadn't been beaten, attacked and humiliated.

The stories they told me spoke of a world in which the women lived with only a hopeful expectation of survival, not a guaranteed one.

One woman would pull out a strand of her hair whenever she got into a client's car. She would lean back and discreetly rub it into the carpet behind the passenger seat.

She hoped it would give police a forensic trail of her last movements. She knew it wouldn't save her life but it would maybe help find those who took it.

Another woman would ensure she kept the used condoms after sex with every client. She would secretly drop them where they had had sex, knowing both their DNA was on it.

That they had to live like this, I found difficult. But worse was hearing how the women were treated by those whose job it was to protect them - the police.

The women spoke of reporting rapes and attacks to the police and said they were rarely believed. They said they felt silenced, as though their voices were worthless.

Yet some of these women had vital information about Emma's case.

Several spoke of a violent client who had taken them to the same woods where Emma's body had been found.

One woman described repeatedly being taken down a motorway by a client she was scared of. Four women picked the same man out of a photobook, stating he had been violent to them.

I investigated all of this, and the evidence I found pointed to one man as a prime suspect - Iain Packer.

He was the man all these women had either named or identified from police photobooks.

Everything I learned suggested he was a sexually violent man who had raped women. I even discovered evidence which alleged he had raped Emma in the months before she went missing.

Packer himself admitted to police that he had taken several women - including Emma - down to the woods where her body was found.

Despite the women repeatedly telling police about their violent experiences with Packer, the police arrested and charged four Turkish men. The case against them collapsed within months.

It is 16 years today since Emma went missing and no-one has been convicted for her murder.

The women I have spoken to say they feel angry and betrayed. They want to know why their experiences and their testimonies were ignored.

And it's a question I'd like answered too.

Live investigation

Concerns over the conduct of the Emma Caldwell murder inquiry were such that in 2015, Scotland's public prosecutor, the Lord Advocate, ordered Police Scotland to re-investigate not only who killed Emma Caldwell, but also what went wrong in the original investigation.

In a statement to the BBC, Police Scotland said the case remained open and a team of detectives continued to examine the circumstances of Ms Caldwell's death.

A report was sent by Police Scotland to the Crown Office in June 2018 and, following further guidance received from the Crown Office, Police Scotland said the investigation continues.

The Crown Office said it could not comment on a live investigation.