The Tragic Lesson of the Emma Caldwell Case

Police officers who 'brought shame on their uniforms' and let Emma Caldwell's killer Iain Packer walk free for 19 years should be jailed if it is found they 'engaged in criminality', her family's lawyer says. 

He was identified by other sex workers as a regular customer who was infatuated with Caldwell and changed his story with police numerous times. These women said he had taken them to woods in South Lanarkshire near where Caldwell's body was discovered. Women working in the sex industry had complained about Packer since 2005, and even added his name to a local “Beware Book” which kept information about potentially dangerous clients. Numerous sex workers identified Packer and complained about rapes that had been perpetrated on them by Packer.

One woman said he usually treated her "like a lady" but on one occasion he became angry when she refused to remove all of her clothes when she was outside. He then apologized to this woman for leaving her "scared". Packer was found to have admitted to the police that he had taken sex workers to woods in South Lanarkshire, but he was ruled out of the initial investigation.

In 2018, Packer was interviewed by journalist Samantha Poling for a documentary on the BBC program Disclosure. Packer denied killing Caldwell and said that he had never been violent towards women. Within days of the documentary being broadcast, one of his former partners went to the police to complain that Packer had pushed her onto a bed, put his hands around her throat, choked her to her injury, and to danger of life. Packer later admitted the charge, as well as a charge of stalking and breaching a court order preventing him from contacting the victim. He was convicted and only sentenced to two years.

Packer, 51, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 36 years at the High Court in Glasgow this month after being found guilty of murdering the 27-year-old in 2005 Caldwell, as well as 11 rapes and 21 other charges, including sexual assaults, against other women.

Yet 'one of the UK's worst sex offenders' was left to roam the streets for nearly two decades despite officers being repeatedly told Packer 'is the man' and the warped killed taking officers in 2007 to the spot where Emma's body was dumped.