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00:01A 27-year-old sex worker goes missing from the streets of Glasgow.
00:06There have been six murders of sex workers within the Glasgow area
00:10in the preceding years.
00:13This is a very, very dangerous trade
00:15because you don't know who you're going to meet,
00:17you don't know the individual, and you don't know what may happen.
00:20When her body turns up in a remote part of Scotland,
00:23a major investigation gets underway.
00:26They took about 8,000 statements and hundreds of DNA samples.
00:31It was probably at that point the biggest murder investigation
00:34in the history of Strathclyde Police.
00:36The decision was made to conduct 24-hour surveillance.
00:41This surveillance is massively expensive
00:44and is a very complicated and complex procedure.
00:48You have to be very sure that you're on the right track,
00:51that these are the people involved.
00:57clothed do not happens.
01:00That should not happen.
01:11We all do the care of Todd Sullivan.
01:11You have to book on the right track,
01:11in the Ciënley?
01:25The family here leads us to the
01:33Limefield Woods, located near Biggar, South Lanarkshire in Scotland, is a peaceful woodland
01:39known for its picturesque walking trails.
01:44Limefield Woods is a huge rural location.
01:47It's about an hour's drive away from Glasgow, about 43 miles, close to the villages of Roberton
01:54and the town of Biggar.
02:01You can go in there at daylight and the light can just disappear, because of the size of
02:05the trees and the denseness of the forest.
02:09The only people that will go there, people who live in the area, or are walkers, or go
02:14there for a specific reason.
02:15It's not somewhere you'll find just by chance by driving past.
02:18This is somewhere you would go to, to have a look at the wonderful area that it is.
02:24It is a place that contrasts between day and night.
02:29During the day, it's peaceful, there's a feeling of serenity, it's tranquil, it's popular with
02:34dog walkers, it's beautiful scenery.
02:36At night, however, it's completely different.
02:39It becomes somewhere that's isolated and remote, and quite frightening.
02:44It's not even, it's pitch black, and it's eerily silent.
02:5130 miles away in the city of Glasgow, parents of a local woman become concerned when they
02:56are unable to reach their daughter in April 2005.
03:04Emma Caldwell was the daughter of Willie and Margaret Caldwell.
03:09Emma comes from a family of two girls.
03:12Emma, her sister, and her parents were very close, and would stay in regular contact.
03:17Emma had a really tragic thing happen to her when she was young, and that was that her older
03:23sister got cancer and sadly died.
03:25And it had a huge impact on Emma for the rest of her life.
03:31Life had been fine up until then, whether that's through education or family life.
03:35Everything was great.
03:36Everything was what we would say, I suppose, that awful word, normal, but it was.
03:40But losing her older sister really did change her.
03:45Clearly, Emma found this such a traumatic time in her life that she turned to drugs, and subsequently
03:51she had a drug habit to fund.
03:56Now, if you're not working, in the sense of having a regular salary, you've got to have
04:01this ready cash available.
04:03And that's going to be done really a number of a couple of ways.
04:06One, it's either through crime, or two, in the case of many, many unfortunate women,
04:11they turn to prostitution.
04:17For young women doing sex work on the street, it's extremely dangerous.
04:22They are extremely vulnerable.
04:23They leave themselves open to physical attack, to rape, even murder.
04:29They are targeted, and they are abused.
04:35The majority of the time, these women will have something that has happened to them in
04:41their past, whether it's their childhood or, you know, in their teenage years.
04:46Quite often, if you actually go to an area where there are on-street sex workers, you
04:51will see a pimp in the background.
04:52You might not realise that's who he is, but there will be a pimp in the background somewhere.
04:55And they're working them, and they're taking the money from them.
04:58They're giving them enough so they can fund their drug habit.
05:02But then they're sending them back out in the streets again to fund their next hit of
05:07drugs.
05:07And it's a brutal, hard, cruel life.
05:14The fact that a prostitute works on the street, the fact that it's illegal means it's undercover.
05:20The fact is that they don't have the protection that other countries offer.
05:24Then this is a very, very dangerous trade, because you don't know who you're going to
05:28meet, you don't know the individual, and you don't know what may happen.
05:34Struggling with drug addiction and wanting to protect her parents from its impact, 27-year-old
05:40Emma Caldwell left her family home and had been living in a woman's hostel in central Glasgow.
05:48On Monday, the 4th of April 2005, Emma Caldwell leaves the hostel that she was living in on
05:56Inglefield Street to go to the streets to do her job as a sex worker.
06:08This is the last time she is seen alive.
06:14The first people to really think there's something amiss within Emma's life were her parents.
06:20About two days after she was last seen, her mother was phoning her, and there was no response,
06:24which was unusual, because they would speak on the phone every day.
06:28Even though Emma had left home and Emma was working as a prostitute, she was still in regular
06:33contact with her parents.
06:35Emma made a point of seeing her parents at least twice a week, but she would have spoken
06:41to her mother, Margaret, two or three times every single day.
06:45On Wednesday, the 6th of April, Emma's father attempted to phone her, but she did not pick up.
06:54And he made a remark to his wife, Margaret, that maybe Emma was unwell.
07:00The mother was so concerned regarding this that she attended the following Saturday the
07:07hostel where she lived.
07:09She made inquiries there, she knocked on the door, but she wasn't there.
07:13The next day, the Sunday, they made the decision to contact the police and report Emma as a missing
07:19person.
07:26Of course, we've now got the situation that one, Emma is an adult, two, she is a prostitute.
07:31Now, even in those days, many police forces around the whole of the UK may not take that
07:39seriously because of what they would say at the time was, well, that's the life she's chosen,
07:44I'm sure she'll turn up.
07:46So a lot of the time, these reports would be taken or taken down and be shown as reported,
07:52but there won't be too much that the police would have been doing at that stage.
07:56One of the things that the police would be particularly interested in, and again, it would set alarm
08:03bells and elevate this investigation, is that she didn't collect her methadone.
08:07A lot of drug addicts, particularly heroin addicts, will have methadone, which is a substitute, which is when they're trying
08:15to wean them off drugs or when they're trying to, you know, themselves realise they have an
08:19issue and they want to be weaned off drugs.
08:21And part of that is that they have a methadone prescription.
08:26To get that methadone prescription, they have to go to a chemist, and it's a specific chemist.
08:31They have a certain time of day, they have to turn up for this methadone.
08:34They have to take the methadone there and then in front of the chemist.
08:38And if somebody doesn't turn up for their methadone, something's not right.
08:43Emma's family, friends and the police become increasingly concerned for her welfare.
08:50There was a lot of things that weren't adding up.
08:52Emma's routine was different because she hadn't been out in the streets.
08:57None of her colleagues had seen her.
08:58Obviously, her family had never heard anything from her in those days.
09:02No phone calls, no meetings, nothing.
09:04So everything had stopped.
09:06Her life just seemed to have stopped completely.
09:10So police were suspicious that she had come to some harm.
09:22As time went on, days turned into weeks of Emma being missing, the police really then started to become more
09:32and more concerned.
09:33So much so that they warned her parents that they might have to prepare themselves for the worst.
09:40Five weeks after her disappearance, Emma's parents' worst fears come true.
09:46On Sunday the 8th of May, a dog walker in Limefield Woods discovered the body of Emma Caldwell.
09:56The police found Emma's body in a shallow ditch within Limefield Woods as she was naked.
10:09And, of course, we've now got the situation.
10:11She's 43 miles from Glasgow, last spotted on CCTV, going to work.
10:16There is absolutely no reason for her to be there.
10:19Why was she there in the first place?
10:21Was her body taken there or was she led there?
10:25In which case, she must have been driven there by somebody who knows the area quite well.
10:30The investigation into Emma Caldwell's murder quickly becomes a high-profile case for the police.
10:37There had been six murders of sex workers within the Glasgow area in the preceding years.
10:42So it was probably at that point the biggest murder investigation in the history of Strathclyde Police.
10:50What investigators didn't know at the time was that disagreements over suspects and internal politics within the Strathclyde Task Force
10:57would significantly complicate the search for the killer.
11:21Five weeks after 27-year-old Emma Caldwell disappeared in Glasgow, her naked body is discovered on May 8, 2005,
11:30in Limefield Woods, a woodland area 30 miles south of Glasgow, near Big Arse, Scotland.
11:38Police were now faced with a difficult task of informing her next of kin.
11:45As a police officer, whether in uniform or as a detective, to give a death message is probably the hardest
11:51thing you'll ever have to do.
11:53And in many cases, just by turning up when it's a missing person case, you turn up at the door
11:58and you knock on it.
11:59The minute they see you, they know it's bad news.
12:03Emma's parents had the unfortunate task of identifying Emma's body in the mortuary.
12:09They were devastated because they had already lost one daughter.
12:13And now they were losing their other daughter in such a cruel way.
12:19The natural landscape of where Emma's body was found poses difficulties for crime scene investigators.
12:26It is a forest. It's full of trees. It's not going to be the easiest place to search.
12:32There are a number of steps that you need to go through.
12:35Firstly, you obviously have to forensically examine, as best you can, under the circumstances, the body whilst it's in situ.
12:43You would obviously conduct a search of the surrounding areas, and this is specialist police search teams, on their hands
12:52and knees, shoulder to shoulder, and literally fingertip searching until they find anything unusual.
13:02And, of course, in this instance, one thing that was discovered around her neck was a piece of wire, which
13:07becomes very crucial in the investigation.
13:10The post-mortem revealed that Emma had been the victim of strangulation, and there were markings on her neck consistent
13:19with the length of cable that had been found underneath her neck.
13:27With the murder investigation underway, Strathclyde Police assemble a task force.
13:34Each investigation in the UK is given an operation name.
13:38In this instance, Emma's murder, the investigation into it, was known as Operation Grail, and that consisted of about 50
13:46officers.
13:47They took about 8,000 statements and hundreds of DNA samples.
13:51So this was a huge inquiry.
13:55The nature of Emma's work makes lines of inquiry difficult to establish.
14:01They come in contact with very, very many people that don't really want to be identified.
14:09And so, even the sex worker themselves probably doesn't know these people, doesn't know their names, doesn't know where they
14:16live.
14:17And that's why it becomes really problematic.
14:21Police begin their search with the people closest to Emma.
14:52Well, first of all, the police obviously spoke to Emma's family.
14:54They came out as possible to speak to as many people as possible, to get as much information about Emma
14:59and her movements, to try and find out who killed her.
15:03The senior investigating officer, Willie Johnston, makes a number of public appeals for information on Emma's murder.
15:12They were appealing to the public, they were appealing to punters, who may well have remembered Emma, who may well
15:19have, you know, been with Emma.
15:21They wanted as many people to come forward and give as much of a detailed description about Emma and her
15:28life as possible.
15:29They also had billboards with Emma's face on it, saying that they were looking for any information, this was really
15:38because a lot of people would have seen Emma as a sex worker, and that's all they would have seen.
15:43They wouldn't have seen beyond that, they wouldn't have seen that she was somebody's daughter.
15:47She had a sister who died of cancer, you know, she was a human being.
15:51And this was trying to make and help people to see her as a human being and not just a
15:57sex worker.
16:02Through speaking with Emma's colleagues, police get their first significant lead.
16:10The police had a very interesting conversation with a sex worker who knew Emma quite well.
16:17This woman told police that there was one particular client who, in her words, was obsessed with Emma.
16:24This client would hide out behind some billboards, and if another client tried to talk to Emma or engage with
16:32Emma, he would drive his van at full speed past them to try and intimidate them, to try and scare
16:37them off.
16:38Almost that he was the only one that was allowed to engage with Emma.
16:43And not only that, she had told the other ladies that he'd raped her.
16:50So investigators now started to build up potentially, a suspect here, someone who's fixating on Emma, has used violence, sexual
16:58violence against her, and he's described as driving a van that's been seen in that area.
17:03So police now had somebody they could start to focus in on.
17:08Investigators quickly locate the distinct vehicle described by the sex workers.
17:13Detectives were able to identify a van that was likely to be being used by this man, and it had
17:18some writing down the side that said, Alpha Beta Sign Services.
17:23The police were suspicious of this individual.
17:27One of the reasons why was because one of the detectives on the case used to work as a repairman
17:32for neon signs.
17:34He noticed that the cable that was found under Emma's neck, the one end of it was damaged, almost as
17:41if it had been burnt.
17:41And from his experiences, he thought that's the kind of thing that could have happened through repairing a sign.
17:47And he thought, could there be a connection between the cable and this man and his line of work?
17:53So suddenly, you got an awful lot of information, not evidence at this stage, but a lot of good information
18:00saying, well, this individual, whoever drives her, whoever owns that van, definitely worth questioning.
18:05On the 22nd of June, 2005, police identified that the man they were looking for was Ian Packer.
18:14So a decision would need to be made.
18:16How do we speak to this person?
18:17Do we speak to them as a witness or speak to them as a suspect?
18:21If they're spoken to as a suspect, they would need to be cautioned and they would need to be done
18:25under certain circumstances.
18:27The police decided they would speak to him as a witness.
18:29They go to this man's house the next morning, 7.30 in the morning.
18:33He's getting up, getting ready to go to work.
18:35He is the director of a science company.
18:40And they ask him, you know, have you ever used prostitutes?
18:44Have you ever been in the red light district?
18:46Things of that nature.
18:47He denies using sex workers.
18:50He denies being a regular in the red light district.
18:53And he is very much given the impression that this has nothing to do with him, that he is just
18:59an ordinary guy.
19:01Fortunately, the detective at the time did take a picture of him.
19:05In most cases, if you deal with somebody as a suspect, you take fingerprints, you take DNA.
19:11That wasn't the case.
19:12He's been dealt with as a witness.
19:13So this detective had the thought, I'll take the picture and just to find out.
19:18And of course, then they had a picture they could take back to some of the witnesses who worked with
19:22Emma to say,
19:23is this the individual that you've told us about?
19:25So they showed 12 photographs of men, two leaders of girls,
19:30and asked them whether the person who they described as fixated with Emma is amongst them.
19:36And he was.
19:37They identified Ian Packer as being that man.
19:42A background check on Packer revealed more incriminating information.
19:48During this investigation, a number of women who were also sex workers came forward to say that they knew Ian
19:54Packer.
19:55And they described him as someone that was quite scary.
19:58They described him as someone who could get very aggressive, very angry.
20:02Someone that was reluctant to use protection.
20:05Someone that would force them to strip off all of their clothing.
20:09And if they didn't do that, he would get very angry.
20:13And he would do things like stomp his feet and raise his voice and just not a nice guy.
20:19To the point that they actually had come up with a book called the Beware Book.
20:23And within that, they had the names of clients that they were warning other working girls to stay away from.
20:29And Ian Packer's name was put in that book quite a few times, as well as an alias he had
20:36used called Peter.
20:38You've got so much evidence now coming from these wonderful witnesses who said this is the man who is sexually
20:44violent towards us and we believe he is responsible for the death of Emma.
20:49We know he actually goes to certain areas.
20:52We know what he's like.
20:53So there's so much evidence being put together that these detectives think they've got the right guy.
21:00They've got the guy that's been driving the van.
21:02They've got the guy that has actually possibly been involved with some sort of cable involved with neon lights.
21:08And they've got these witnesses saying he has previous for being violent towards women on the street.
21:14Obviously, the investigation team would be quite excited by this.
21:17And they would take the next logical step, and that is to arrest and take him into custody.
21:25This would obviously have to be approved by the SIO.
21:28And in this particular case, the SIO decided that that was not the course of action that they were going
21:35to take.
21:36They were instructed by the SIO not to treat this individual as a suspect.
21:42And of course, as a junior officer, you respect the decision of a SIO, but it makes you wonder why.
21:52What they don't know is behind the scenes, there is a separate inquiry into the murder, and four suspects have
21:58been identified.
22:14Stratheclyde police are investigating the murder of Emma Caldwell, whose body was discovered in the remote Limefield woods near Biggar,
22:21Scotland, on the 8th of May 2005.
22:25Authorities have identified a strong suspect, Ian Packer, a man known for his violent behaviour towards sex workers, and is
22:34reported to have been obsessed with Caldwell.
22:37However, detectives are unaware that there is a parallel, covert murder investigation underway.
22:44Some detectives working in Operation Greil went to interview people, and when they went to interview them as witnesses, they
22:51were told, we've already been spoken to you.
22:55And the detectives were a bit perplexed at this and goes, really?
22:59He goes, oh yeah, we've had someone just, you know, been here recently and spoken to me.
23:03And the detectives would run back to the police station and inquire and be told, oh no, they haven't been
23:08spoken to you.
23:08But the witnesses were absolutely insistent they have been spoken to you.
23:13It then transpires that alongside Operation Greil, there is a secret unit working on the Emma Caldwell investigation called Operation
23:21Guard.
23:22There was a whole different strand to the investigation that they weren't being told about.
23:25For me, it's unprecedented in the sense that I've not known that.
23:28If you've got one operation running, that's that operation, even if it might coincide or conflict with another one.
23:37But you're both aware of both operations.
23:40You don't keep an operation within an operation secret from police officers, because you're going to get the conflict of
23:47interest and the conflict of evidence.
23:49You can't do it that way.
23:52DCI Colin Field holds a briefing in the morning with DS Willie Johnson and all the detectives from Operation Greil
24:00and Operation Guard.
24:02And he tells all the detectives what they've been doing, what they've been working on.
24:06We understand that yous were interested in Ian Packer, but this is where we're heading and this is why we're
24:11heading.
24:13The details of Operation Guard's line of inquiry was revealed to be in relation to a Turkish man that had
24:19called Emma's phone.
24:23The last phone call made to Emma's phone on the night of Monday the 4th of April 2005 was a
24:3072nd phone call from a man called Abu Bakr Anku.
24:35He was a Turkish man and he had rang Emma that night, the night of her murder.
24:41And of course, in many, many murder cases that you deal with, the last person that had contact with the
24:47victim tends to be the murderer.
24:50Further examination of cell phone data reveals that the night of Emma's disappearance, one of her last known locations, was
24:57near a Turkish cafe.
25:01So now there's a lot of circumstantial evidence, not evidence pointing to a murderer or a suspect, but there's circumstantial
25:08evidence that the SIO's taken aboard saying,
25:11right, it's got to have something to do with that cafe, because we've got the phone, Emma's phone near the
25:17location,
25:17and we've got Anku that we've now got, we know he was the last person to make contact or try
25:22to make contact with Emma,
25:24and we've got the location.
25:25So let's now concentrate on looking at the cafe, because they know that that's also a cafe that's frequented by
25:33women and prostitutes,
25:34so that's where the line of inquiry then was strengthened.
25:41Anku was questioned by detectives, and he denied that he had seen Emma that night.
25:48He couldn't recall making the phone call, he couldn't recall what they had spoken about,
25:53but he denied any knowledge of her murder or the events that led up to her death,
25:57but he did concede that he had had a previous intimate encounter with Emma Caldwell.
26:05Detectives on Operation Guard felt this was enough evidence to focus all their efforts on the Turkish man and his
26:11comrades.
26:12The decision was made to conduct 24-hour surveillance on the cafe,
26:20which would include visual surveillance and also audio surveillance,
26:27and this would entail putting listening devices, or bugs if you like, inside the premises,
26:35so that they could listen to conversations.
26:37This surveillance is massively expensive.
26:41Not only is it time-consuming, but finding people to follow people 24 hours a day,
26:48to fund the bugging of rooms, of people's phones.
26:52It is a huge undertaking, cost-wise, but also in terms of manpower,
26:59and is a very complicated and complex procedure.
27:05To get that type of clearance to start that kind of surveillance and investigation is a massive step,
27:12but you have to be very sure that you're on the right track.
27:15You have to be able to demonstrate that these are the people involved.
27:18We really believe strongly they're involved, and we want to gather more evidence.
27:22So you have to convince further up the line that this is why you're doing it,
27:27that there is a valid reason for doing it,
27:29and that you're confident that you will get some reward at the end to build a case against these people.
27:38Meanwhile, detectives on Operation Grail continued their investigation into Ian Packer.
27:46They speak to another of the sex workers, who says that she's been taken to a remote area by one
27:55of her customers.
27:56They then decided to conduct another line-up with this particular sex worker,
28:05and she said that Ian Packer was someone who would have picked her up on a Monday, Wednesday, and a
28:17Friday.
28:17And she said on one occasion he took her outside of Glasgow to a very remote location,
28:24at least an hour's drive away.
28:27And the police asked her, could she retrace that route?
28:31They were very interested in knowing exactly where Ian Packer took her.
28:35And when they were going on the route, she was telling the police things she remembered,
28:40and lo and behold, the more they went on the route, those things came to be true.
28:46She told them that she noticed they'd bus stop,
28:48that she took note of because she said that Packer was taking her so far
28:52that she at one point was going to jump out of the bus stop to escape
28:55because she was getting very nervous, because he was going so far off the beaten track.
29:00She then noticed that at one stage they went over something that made like a
29:03da-dum, da-dum, da-dum type noise.
29:05Well, that turned out to be a cattle grid.
29:12She eventually took them to the exact spot,
29:14as she described seeing Christmas trees on either side of the road, as she described them.
29:19And she said she remembers them going up to a silver gate.
29:23And she said this was the point that Packer stopped the van.
29:32Just to the left of that spot is where Emma Caldwell's body was found.
29:40So now we have another woman who, working as a prostitute,
29:45has been taken to this area by the person that she's named as Ian Packer,
29:49and it just so happens that that's the same location as Emma.
29:53This cannot be a coincidence. It can't be a coincidence.
29:56And yet it still wasn't acted on.
29:59They're directed from above to say,
30:01Ian Packer is not our man. Ian Packer will never be charged over this.
30:05This is not the direction we are heading in.
30:09You just get the feeling that the SIO is thinking,
30:11no, I want to forget that guy,
30:13because the more I've got the distraction of people talking about Ian Packer,
30:18I'm losing what I'm trying to gain on the individuals
30:22who I believe are responsible for it from the Turkish cafe.
30:25So he tells the officer straight away,
30:27go and speak to him as a witness and tell him that is it.
30:31We don't need him any longer. He's free to carry on his own business.
30:35But when detectives visit Packer to tell him he is eliminated as a suspect,
30:39he makes a shocking admission.
30:43Now he admits to everything.
30:45Yes, he does know Emma. He has met Emma.
30:48He does use prostitutes.
30:50But he didn't hurt her.
30:52He's non-violent and he sticks to that type of the story.
30:55But now we go back and you think,
30:57these detectives must be sitting there thinking,
30:59well, hang on.
31:00You've gone from lying to us
31:03to driving that van,
31:05being possibly associated with the cable.
31:08We've got witnesses who've put you at the location.
31:12We've got witnesses who say you're a violent individual
31:14who's raped some of the prostitutes
31:16and now you're admitting to knowing Emma
31:18and having been with her.
31:23Based on Packer's confession,
31:25detectives on Operation Grail make a tactical decision.
31:30Now they asked Packer
31:32to take them to the area where he takes the girls.
31:36And he took them to exactly the same area.
31:43He was within yards
31:45of where Emma's body was found.
31:47Now for those officers,
31:49it would have been almost a surreal moment.
31:51Here's somebody that we suspect as being the killer
31:53and he's actually taken us
31:55to the site where the body was dumped.
32:00So these detectives now had a decision to make, essentially.
32:04In their minds,
32:06they already suspected that Packer was the killer.
32:08Now him taking them to the deposition site,
32:11that can only firm that up.
32:13How can it not be him?
32:15How can all this evidence pointed to him not be right?
32:19In their minds,
32:19they're thinking,
32:20are we missing something?
32:22Are we going crazy?
32:24We need to take this to the bosses.
32:25So that's what they did.
32:28Packer has taken us to the deposition site,
32:30a deposition site that we ourselves struggle to find.
32:35What came back was the same thing.
32:38No, leave him alone.
32:39It's not him.
32:40We've got the right people.
32:41It is not Packer.
32:43I can't even begin to imagine
32:45the frustrations of those officers,
32:47good detectives,
32:48good experienced officers
32:49that in their minds
32:51would have been absolutely convinced at this point,
32:53but were being told by senior officers,
32:55no, you're wrong.
32:57The senior investigating officer
32:59orders the detectives pursuing Packer
33:01to stand down,
33:03asserting that they have damning evidence
33:05from translated audio recordings
33:07captured during the surveillance of the Turkish cafe.
33:10During these conversations,
33:12a casino was mentioned,
33:14and in fact,
33:15the casino was next door to the premises.
33:17They searched the casino,
33:20and in the casino,
33:22they found clothing
33:23that they believed to be Emma's.
33:25And they also found a little key ring
33:27with a horse on it,
33:29which was interesting
33:30because Emma had previously worked
33:32at the stables as a young girl.
33:36Police were convinced
33:37that these clothing and items
33:39did belong to Emma Caldwell.
33:43Their final piece of evidence
33:45was found within the cafe.
33:49The police,
33:50when they were searching
33:51the Turkish community cafe,
33:52found some bed linen,
33:54and on that bed linen,
33:55they found two specks of blood.
33:57That blood was found
33:59to belong to Emma Caldwell.
34:00So there were a number of things
34:02that made the police very confident
34:04that these Turkish men were involved
34:06and ordered them to be arrested.
34:08One of the officers
34:09who strongly suspected
34:11Packer as being Emma's killer
34:13was given the task
34:16of interviewing Onku,
34:17which essentially involved him
34:19playing the recordings from the cafe,
34:22recordings that he had been told
34:24had been translated
34:25by the best in the business.
34:28But when they played
34:29this recording to Onku,
34:32he started to laugh at them,
34:34saying that what you're telling me
34:36on there isn't true,
34:37almost ridiculing the product,
34:40ridiculing the officer,
34:42putting him in a really awkward position.
34:45The problem was
34:46the quality of the audio recordings
34:48weren't great,
34:48and the detective himself
34:50had to concede
34:51that it sounded like
34:52a bunch of men
34:53sitting around a television
34:54chatting.
34:55There was just nothing
34:56really decipherable there.
34:58Basically, he went out
34:59and told the SIO that
35:01and told the superiors,
35:02I'm not convinced this is right,
35:03and they said,
35:04well, he's our man,
35:06go back in and charge him.
35:07So he did so.
35:10After four million pounds
35:11had been spent on the investigation
35:13into Emma Caldwell's murder,
35:15the most expensive murder inquiry
35:17ever in Scotland,
35:18the four Turkish men
35:19are charged with the crime.
35:22The pressure is on
35:23to secure a conviction,
35:24but some detectives
35:25are convinced
35:26the killer
35:27is still walking free.
35:43On May 8, 2005,
35:45the body of 27-year-old
35:47Emma Caldwell
35:47was discovered
35:48in a remote woodland
35:4930 miles south of Glasgow.
35:51Five weeks after she disappeared.
35:54Strathclyde police
35:55charged four Turkish men
35:57with her murder
35:58following a major
35:59surveillance operation
36:00at their cafe,
36:01making it Scotland's
36:02most expensive
36:03murder investigation.
36:07Police seek authority
36:08to charge the four men
36:09with Emma's murder,
36:10and that's granted.
36:11So they're now going to
36:13stand trial
36:15for Emma's murder.
36:16And the defence team
36:17would have to look
36:18at the evidence
36:19and essentially question it.
36:21test it.
36:22And the main part
36:23of the evidence
36:23was these recordings
36:24from the cafe.
36:27Worryingly,
36:27what transpired
36:28was the experts
36:30that the senior officers
36:32had used
36:33to transcribe
36:34the recordings
36:35were in fact
36:36Turkish-speaking officers
36:38whose grasp of Turkish
36:39actually wasn't fluent.
36:41One of the police officers,
36:42whilst he was
36:43of Turkish descent,
36:44he only had
36:45an O-level
36:46in the subject
36:47of the Turkish language.
36:48Another officer,
36:50again of Turkish descent,
36:51had to confess
36:52that his knowledge
36:53of the language
36:53was at best
36:54limited.
36:56So it was far
36:57from the best
36:58experts in the land.
37:01Independent translators
37:02are brought in
37:03to transcribe the recordings
37:04in preparation
37:05for the trial.
37:07The independent experts
37:08come in,
37:09they listen to the recordings
37:10and they say,
37:13what is alleged
37:14to have been said here
37:15is not obvious.
37:17We can't say
37:18that this is what
37:19is being said.
37:20It's quite clear
37:21that none of us
37:22is being said.
37:23The other situation
37:24was that yes,
37:25Emma Colwell's blood
37:27was found
37:28in the Turkish cafe,
37:29but you have to remember
37:30that police knew
37:31that sex workers
37:32had been taken there
37:33in the past.
37:35That does not necessarily
37:36prove that she was
37:37killed there.
37:38The other issue
37:39in regards to the clothing
37:41and key ring
37:42found at the casino,
37:44they were never
37:45100% confirmed
37:46to belong to Emma Colwell.
37:48The police found them
37:49and put two and two together
37:50and thought,
37:51well,
37:51these have to be Emma's,
37:52but they were never
37:53independently verified
37:54as having belonged
37:55to Emma Colwell.
37:56At this point,
37:57obviously,
37:57that line of inquiry
37:59has completely collapsed,
38:00which is unusual
38:03because,
38:04generally speaking,
38:06all the evidence
38:09is checked
38:09and double-checked
38:10to make sure
38:12that we've got it right.
38:14This strand of the inquiry
38:15collapsed very,
38:17very quickly.
38:20You've now got
38:21the whole situation here
38:22that you've got
38:23the money being spent,
38:25the four million pounds
38:27that have been spent
38:27on this operation alone,
38:29not the original
38:30Operation Grail.
38:31So what do they do?
38:32We've got the wrong people,
38:34we've got no evidence,
38:35it's fallen through,
38:36what do we do?
38:37It's quite an embarrassment
38:38for that SIO.
38:41Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
38:43It's not like this was
38:44built on no foundations,
38:45this was built on
38:46some foundation.
38:47The problem was
38:49that it went further
38:50than what it should have.
38:51If the police
38:52had got the independent experts
38:54in at an earlier stage
38:56to make the translations
38:57and to transcribe
38:58the audio recordings
38:59and if they had turned around
39:01and said,
39:01this is not going to get the court,
39:03we can't hear anything,
39:04this is not what is being said,
39:05this is inaccurate,
39:07it may not have went as far.
39:08The situation now was
39:11that the evidence
39:12they had against these four men
39:14was essentially rubbished,
39:17meaning that the case
39:18against them collapsed,
39:19they were now to be released.
39:21It is strange and questionable
39:23as to when the Turkish men
39:26are eliminated
39:27and exonerated as suspects
39:29that they didn't return
39:31to the alternative
39:32and a very strong suspect
39:34in Ian Packer.
39:36That in itself is strange
39:39because there was so much
39:40pointing to Packer.
39:44Though suspicion remains
39:46towards Packer,
39:47nothing happens
39:48for almost 15 years.
39:52In 2019,
39:54Ian Packer approaches the BBC
39:56and he approaches
39:57a well-known journalist
39:58called Samantha Poling
39:59and he wants to tell his side
40:02of the story,
40:03he wants to clear his name
40:04and he feels
40:06her interviewing him
40:08is the best way
40:08to achieve that.
40:10In the production
40:11of this particular documentary,
40:14Ian Packer decides
40:15that he will voluntarily
40:17appear and openly admits
40:19that he knows Emma,
40:21openly admits
40:21that he uses prostitutes
40:24but says he is never
40:26being violent towards them
40:28and he certainly
40:29has never raped any of them.
40:30If Ian Packer
40:32had been raised
40:33as a suspect
40:34by detectives originally,
40:37one of the processes
40:38that they would go through
40:39is to build up
40:40a picture of his life,
40:42trying to understand
40:43if there's a pattern
40:44of behaviour.
40:45That didn't take place
40:46because he wasn't raised
40:47as a suspect.
40:49But those making
40:50the documentary
40:51went through that process,
40:54trying to build up
40:54that picture of him.
40:56What Samantha Poling did
40:57was Samantha Poling
40:58went and spoke to
40:59as many people
40:59as she could
41:00about Ian Packer
41:01and far from a man
41:03who denied being
41:04sexually violent
41:05or abusive to women,
41:07who had never raped a woman,
41:08who had never hurt a woman,
41:09she found a truckload
41:11of circumstantial evidence
41:12from people
41:13who had had experiences
41:15with Ian Packer,
41:16very negative experiences.
41:18One sex worker
41:19told her that Ian Packer
41:20had got her
41:21inside his van
41:22and had attempted
41:23to strangle her
41:24and she was only saved
41:25when a security guard
41:26banged on the van
41:27and she managed to escape.
41:29Another one told
41:30about being taken
41:31behind some shops.
41:33Ian Packer
41:34had tried to force her
41:34onto her knees
41:35and she managed to escape
41:37and when she was running
41:38down the street,
41:39Packer was running
41:39after her,
41:40shouting threats.
41:42She was building
41:43this picture
41:44of a very,
41:44very dangerous man,
41:46someone that was controlling,
41:47someone that was aggressive
41:48and someone that was violent.
41:54A woman called
41:55Magdalene Roberts
41:56is interviewed
41:57as part of the documentary.
41:58She knew Packer
42:00when she was a child.
42:02Ian Packer
42:03had become a friend
42:04to her family
42:05and she had a very disturbing
42:07experience
42:08with Ian Packer
42:09to tell.
42:11She said that Packer
42:12would sexually harass her
42:14and she's 14 years of age
42:16at this point.
42:17He would sexually harass her,
42:18he would intimidate her,
42:21she would wake up
42:22in the middle of the night
42:22to find him standing
42:23by her bed
42:24staring at her.
42:25That then escalates
42:27to him sexually assaulting
42:29Magdalene
42:30and eventually raping her
42:31in her own home.
42:34She told her family
42:36what had happened
42:37and they basically said
42:40to her,
42:40you know,
42:40you're making it up
42:41but they didn't really
42:42believe her.
42:43But 10 months
42:45after the murder
42:46of Emma Caldwell,
42:47Magdalene Roberts
42:48reports her rape
42:51by Ian Packer
42:52to the police
42:52and the police
42:54unfortunately
42:55do nothing with it.
42:58On camera,
43:00Samantha Poling
43:01confronts Ian Packer
43:02with her finding.
43:03His decision
43:04to participate
43:05in the documentary
43:06would be his downfall.
43:08Whilst he's happy
43:09to say,
43:10yes, I knew Emma,
43:11yes, I visit sex workers,
43:13what he's not expecting
43:14is the fact that,
43:15hang on a minute,
43:16we know you're violent,
43:17we know you're a rapist,
43:18we know that you've
43:19actually committed rape,
43:20we know that you actually
43:21raped a girl
43:22when she was 14.
43:23He is sitting there
43:24being hit with everything
43:26and that must have
43:26taken him by surprise.
43:28He was dumbfounded
43:30and really taken aback
43:32when she told him
43:34that she believed
43:35he was a dangerous man
43:36and that he was dangerous
43:37to women
43:37and that he had lied to her
43:39and that he had questions
43:41to answer regarding
43:42the death of Emma Caldwell.
43:44Shortly after the documentary
43:45is published,
43:4613 years after Emma's murder,
43:49an ex-partner of Packer
43:50comes forward
43:51and tells police
43:52that he had attacked her.
43:54He actually was jailed
43:56for attacking
43:56his former partner.
43:59He then subsequently,
44:01post that,
44:02is charged with
44:03the murder of Emma Caldwell
44:04and the interviews
44:05he give to Samantha Pauline
44:07form part of the evidence.
44:10Ian, can you describe
44:11the relationship to me
44:12with Emma Caldwell?
44:14Could you provide
44:15a description of Emma to me?
44:19Can you confirm
44:20when you're first, mate?
44:21I'm correct.
44:23On the 28th of February,
44:252022,
44:27Ian Packer
44:27was convicted
44:28of Emma's murder
44:30and he was also convicted
44:32of 33 other counts
44:34relating to assaults,
44:36sexual assaults
44:37and over his lifetime,
44:39he had targeted
44:40and attacked
44:4122 women.
44:43Ian Packer
44:44was sentenced
44:44to life imprisonment
44:46with a minimum term
44:47of 36 years.
44:49It has turned out
44:50that he has
44:51become one of the most
44:53prolific rapists
44:54and sex offenders
44:55in modern Scottish history.
44:56He has
44:59put himself
45:02in the frame
45:03for a murder
45:04that he committed
45:06some many years ago
45:08and I find it astonishing
45:10that he would do
45:12such a thing
45:13and unbelievable.
45:14When I look at Ian Packer,
45:16I see a sexual predator
45:18who was driven
45:21by his need
45:22for power
45:23and control
45:24over vulnerable women,
45:26sex workers,
45:2714-year-old girl,
45:28people that he could
45:29easily prey on
45:30and the fact
45:32that he was allowed
45:33to keep carrying on
45:34his crimes,
45:35he was almost emboldened
45:37and I think that's
45:38the biggest tragedy here
45:39of how many victims
45:42that fell foul of him
45:44when they didn't need to.
45:46For the family,
45:47they would have undoubtedly
45:49mixed feelings
45:50about his conviction.
45:52They would be
45:53that satisfaction
45:54that eventually
45:55someone has faced justice
45:56for Emma's murder
45:58but he was allowed
45:59to live
46:00for that interim period.
46:02He was allowed
46:03out and about
46:03to live his life,
46:04a life that Emma
46:05will never lead.
46:18To be continued...
46:49Transcription by CastingWords
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