- 5 hours ago
True Crime Presents Season 2 Episode 3
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Short filmTranscript
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 in the preceding years.
00:13This is a very, very dangerous trade because 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, a 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 in the history of Strathclyde Police.
00:36A decision was made to conduct 24-hour surveillance.
00:41This surveillance is massively expensive and is a very complicated and complex procedure.
00:48You have to be very sure that you're on the right track, that these are the people involved.
00:58Here we go.
01:00I'm ready.
01:17Let's go.
01:24We're feeling a little bit in here.
01:26Let's go.
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.
02:00You 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 a place that's isolated and remote, and it's, it's a place that's isolated and remote.
02:48It's a place that's isolated and remote, and it's a place that's isolated and remote.
02:50Thirty 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
03:52she 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, and 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.
04:30They 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 they're on-street sex workers, you will
04:51see 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, but then they're sending
05:03them back out on the streets again to fund their next hit of drugs, and it's a brutal,
05:11hard, 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
05:44Glasgow.
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.
06:13The 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
06:33regular contact with her parents.
06:34Emma 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.
06:44On Wednesday, the 6th of April, Emma's father attempted to phone her, but she did not pick
06:53up, and 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
07:19a missing person.
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
07:44chosen.
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.
08:08A lot of drug addicts, particularly heroin addicts, will have methadone, which is a substitute,
08:14which is when they're trying to wean them off drugs, or when they're trying to, you know,
08:18themselves realise they have an issue and they want to be weaned off drugs, and part
08:22of 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, and if somebody
08:38doesn'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, none of her
08:57colleagues had seen her.
08:59Obviously her family had never heard anything from her in those days, no phone calls, no
09:03meetings, nothing, so everything had stopped her.
09:06Her life just seemed to have stopped completely.
09:09Anyway, so police were suspicious that she had come to some harm.
09:23As time went on, days turned into weeks of Emma being missing, the police really then started
09:31to become more and more concerned, so much so that they warned her parents that they might
09:36have 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, in which case she must have been driven there
10:27by somebody who knows the area quite well?
10:30The investigation into Emma Caldwell's murder quickly becomes a high-profile case for the police.
10:36There 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
10:48police.
10:50What investigators didn't know at the time was that disagreements over suspects and internal
10:55politics within the Strathclyde task force would significantly complicate the search for
11:00the killer.
11:21Five weeks after 27-year-old Emma Caldwell disappeared in Glasgow, her naked body is discovered
11:28on May 8th, 2005, in Limefield Woods, a woodland area 30 miles south of Blasgow, 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
11:51the hardest thing 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
11:57the door and you knock on it.
11:58The 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.
12:18The natural landscape of where Emma's body was found poses difficulties for crime scene
12:24investigators.
12:26It is a forest.
12:28It's full of trees.
12:29It's not going to be the easiest place to search.
12:31There 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,
12:42the body whilst it's in situ.
12:44You would obviously conduct a search of the surrounding areas.
12:48And this is specialist police search teams, on their hands and knees, shoulder to shoulder,
12:55and 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
13:06of wire which becomes very crucial in the investigation.
13:10The post-mortem revealed that Emma had been the victim of strangulation and there were markings
13:17on her neck consistent with 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.
13:38In this instance, Emma's murder, the investigation into it, was known as Operation Grail.
13:44And that consisted of about 50 officers.
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 able to
14:08be identified.
14:09And so, even the sex worker themselves probably doesn't know these people, doesn't know their
14:15names, doesn't know where they live.
14:17And that's why it becomes really problematic.
14:21Police begin their search with the people closest to Emma.
14:25Well, first of all, the police obviously spoke to Emma's family.
14:27They tried to get as much information from her family as possible of what kind of person
14:32Emma was and basically her whole backstory as a human being.
14:36They then spoke to people in the hostel who knew Emma.
14:40And then they obviously made their way to speaking to other sex workers on the streets of Glasgow's
14:45red light district who would have knew Emma and would have knew her habits, her movements
14:50and things like that.
14:51So they were basically casting as big a net out as possible to speak to as many people
14:57as possible to get as much information about Emma and her movements to try and find out
15:02who killed her.
15:04The senior investigating officer, Willie Johnston, makes a number of public appeals for information
15:09on Emma's murder.
15:12They were appealing to the public.
15:14They were appealing to punters who may well have remembered Emma, who may well have, you
15:20know, been with Emma.
15:21They wanted as many people to come forward and give as much of a detailed description about
15:27Emma and her life as possible.
15:29They also had billboards with Emma Caldwell's face on it saying that they were looking for
15:35any information.
15:37This was really because a lot of people would have seen Emma as a sex worker and that's
15:42all they would have seen.
15:43They wouldn't have seen beyond that.
15:44They wouldn't have seen that she was somebody's daughter.
15:47She had a sister who died of cancer.
15:49You 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
15:57worker.
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
16:23with Emma.
16:24This client would hide out behind some billboards and if another client tried to talk to Emma
16:31or engage with Emma, he would drive his van at full speed past them to try and intimidate
16:36them to try and scare them 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.
16:49So investigators now started to build up potentially a suspect here, someone who's fixating on Emma,
16:57has used violence, sexual violence against her.
16:59And he's described as driving a van that's been seen in that area.
17:03So police now had somebody that 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.
17:18And it had some 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,
17:39almost as if it had been burnt.
17:42And from his experiences, he thought that's the kind of thing that could have happened
17:45through 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've got an awful lot of information, not evidence at this stage,
17:58but a lot of good information saying, well, this individual, whoever drives her,
18:02whoever owns that van, definitely worth questioning.
18:05On the 22nd of June 2005, police identified that the man they were looking for
18:09was 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
18:23and they would need to be done under certain circumstances.
18:27The police decided they would speak to him as a witness.
18:30They go to this man's house the next morning at 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,
18:58that he is just an ordinary guy.
19:01Fortunately, the detective at the time did take a picture of him.
19:04In most cases, if you deal with somebody as a suspect,
19:09you 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,
19:16I'll take the picture and just to find out.
19:18And of course, then they had a picture they could take back
19:20to some of the witnesses who worked with Emma 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
19:34is 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
19:52came forward to say that they knew Ian Packer.
19:55And they described him as someone that was quite scary.
19:57They described him as someone who could get very aggressive, very angry.
20:01Someone 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.
20:16And just not a nice guy.
20:18To 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
20:27other 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,
20:42this is the man who is sexually violent towards us.
20:45And 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.
20:59They'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.
22:13Strathclyde 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 behavior towards sex workers, and is
22:33reported to have been obsessed with Caldwell.
22:36However, 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.
22:54And the detectives were a bit perplexed at this and goes, really?
22:58He goes, oh yeah, we've had someone just, you know, been here recently and spoken to me.
23:03And the detectives would ring back to the police station and inquire and be told, oh no, they haven't been
23:07spoken to you.
23:08But the witnesses were absolutely insistent they have been spoken to you.
23:12It then transpires that alongside Operation Greil, there is a secret unit working on the Emma Caldwell investigation called Operation
23:20Guard.
23:21There 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
23:46interest 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.
24:01And he tells all the detectives what they've been doing, what they've been working on.
24:06We understand that you were interested in Ian Packer, but this is where we're heading and this is why we're
24:11heading.
24:12The 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.
24:22The last phone call made to Emma's phone on the night of Monday the 4th of April 2005 was a
24:2972nd 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
24:46victim tends to be the murderer.
24:49Further 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.
25:00So now, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence, not evidence pointing to a murderer or a suspect, but it's circumstantial
25:08evidence that the SIO's taken on board to think,
25:10right, it's got to have something to do with that cafe, because we've got the phone, Emma's phone near the
25:16location, and we've got Anku that we've now got.
25:19We know he was the last person to make contact or try to make contact with Emma, and we've got
25:24the 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
25:32women 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, but he denied any knowledge
25:54of 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 Colwell.
26:04Detectives on Operation Guard felt this was enough evidence to focus all their efforts on the Turkish man and his
26:10comrades.
26:12The decision was made to conduct 24-hour surveillance on the cafe, which would include visual surveillance and also audio
26:25surveillance.
26:27And this would entail putting listening devices or bugs, if you like, inside the premises so that they could listen
26:36to conversations.
26:37This surveillance is massively expensive.
26:40Not only is it time-consuming, but finding people to follow people 24 hours a day to fund the bugging
26:49of rooms, of people's phones.
26:51It is a huge undertaking, cost-wise, but also in terms of manpower, and is a very complicated and complex
27:02procedure.
27:04To get that type of clearance to start that kind of surveillance and investigation is a massive step, but you
27:12have to be very sure that you're on the right track.
27:14You have to be able to demonstrate that these are the people involved.
27:17We really believe strongly they're involved, and we want to gather more evidence.
27:21So you have to convince further up the line that this is why you're doing it, that there is a
27:27valid reason for doing it,
27:28and that you're confident that you will get some reward at the end to build a case against these people.
27:37Meanwhile, detectives on Operation Grail continued their investigation into Ian Packer.
27:45They speak to another of the sex workers, who says that she's been taken to a remote area by one
27:54of her customers.
27:56They then decided to conduct another line-up with this particular sex worker, and again, she picked out Ian Packer.
28:10And she said that Ian Packer was someone who would have picked her up on a Monday, Wednesday, and a
28:16Friday.
28:17And she said on one occasion he took her outside of Glasgow to a very remote location, at least an
28:24hour's drive away.
28:26And the police asked her, could she retrace that route?
28:30They were very interested in knowing exactly where Ian Packer took her.
28:34And 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.
28:45She told them that she noticed a bus stop that she took note of, because she said that Packer was
28:50taking her so far,
28:51that she at one point was going to jump out of the bus stop to escape, because she was getting
28:55very nervous,
28:56because he was going so far off the beaten track.
28:59She then noticed that at one stage they went over something that made like a doo-doo-dum-dum-dum
29:04-dum-dum type noise.
29:04Well, that turned out to be a cattle grid.
29:11She eventually took them to the exact spot, as she described seeing Christmas trees on either side of the road,
29:18as she described him and she said she remembers them going up to a silver gate and she said this
29:24was the point that packer stopped the van just the left of that spot is where emma colwell's body was
29:36found so now we have a another woman who working as a prostitute has been taken to this area by
29:46the person that she's named as ian packer and it just so happens that that's the same location as
29:52emma this cannot be a coincidence it can't be a coincidence and yet it still wasn't acted on
29:58they're directed from above to say ian packer is not our man ian packer will never be charged over
30:04this this is not the direction we are heading in you just get the feeling that the sii is thinking
30:11no i want to forget that guy because the more i've got the distraction of people talking about
30:16ian packer i'm losing what i'm trying to gain on the individuals who i believe are responsible for
30:23from the turkish cafe so he tells the officer straight away go and speak to him as a witness
30:29and tell him that is it we don't need him any longer he's free to carry on his own business
30:34but when detectives visit packer to tell him he is eliminated as a suspect he makes a shocking admission
30:42now he admits to everything yes he does know emma he has met emma um he does use prostitutes um
30:50but
30:50he didn't hurt her he's non-violent and he sticks to that type of story but now we go back
30:56and you
30:56think these detectives must be sitting there thinking well hang on you've gone from lying to us
31:02so driving that van being possibly associated with the cable we've got witnesses who've put you at the
31:11location we've got witnesses who say you're a violent individual who's raped some of the prostitutes
31:16and now you're admitting to knowing emma and having been with her
31:23based on packer's confession detectives on operation grail make a tactical decision
31:30now they asked packer to take them to the area where he takes the girls and he took them to
31:37exactly
31:37the same area he was within yards of where emma's body was found now for those officers it would have
31:49been almost a surreal moment here's somebody that we suspect has been a killer and he's actually taken us
31:54to the site where the body was dumped so these detectives now had a decision to make essentially
32:04in their minds they already suspected the packer was the killer now him taking them to the deposition
32:10site that can only firm that up how can it not be him how can how can all this evidence
32:16pointed to him
32:17not be right in their minds they're thinking though is this are we missing something are we going crazy
32:23we need to take this to the bosses so that's what they did packer has taken us to the deposition
32:29site
32:30a deposition site that we ourselves struggle to find what came back was the same thing no leave him
32:38alone it's not him we've got the right people it is not packer i can't even begin to imagine the
32:45frustrations of those officers good detectives good experienced officers that in their minds would have
32:50been absolutely convinced at this point but we're being told by senior officers no you're wrong
32:57the senior investigating officer orders the detectives pursuing packer to stand down
33:02asserting that they have damning evidence from translated audio recordings captured during the
33:07surveillance of the turkish cafe during these conversations a casino was mentioned and in
33:14fact the casino was next door to the premises they searched the casino and in the casino they found
33:22clothing that they believed to be emma's and they also found a little key ring with a horse on it
33:28which
33:28was interesting because emma had previously worked at the stables as a young girl
33:35police were convinced that these clothing and items did belong to emma colwell
33:43their final piece of evidence was found within the cafe
33:49the police when they were searching the turkish community cafe found some bed linen and on that bed
33:54linen they found two specks of blood that blood was found to belong to emma colwell so there were a
34:01number of things that made the police very confident and that these turkish men were involved and ordered
34:07them to be arrested one of the officers who strongly suspected hacker as being emma's killer was given the task
34:15of interviewing onku which essentially involved him playing the recordings from the cafe
34:22recordings that he had been told had been translated by the best in the business
34:28but when they played this recording to onku he started to laugh at them saying that what
34:35you're telling me on there isn't true almost ridiculing the product ridiculing the officer putting
34:42him in a really awkward position the problem was the quality of the audio recordings weren't great
34:48and the detective himself had to concede that it sounded like a bunch of men sitting around a
34:53television chatting there was just nothing really decipherable there basically he went out and told the
34:59sio that and told the superiors i'm not convinced this is right and they said well he's our man go
35:05back
35:05gonna charge him so he did so after four million pounds had been spent on the investigation into emma
35:13caldwell's murder the most expensive murder inquiry ever in scotland the four turkish men are charged with
35:20the crime the pressure is on to secure a conviction but some detectives are convinced the killer is still
35:40walking free
35:41on may 8 2005 the body of 27 year old emma caldwell was discovered in a remote woodland 30 miles
35:49south
35:49of glasgow five weeks after she disappeared strathclyde police charged four turkish men with her murder
35:56following a major surveillance operation at their cafe making it scotland's most expensive murder
36:03investigation police seek authority to charge the four men with emma's murder and that's granted
36:10so they're now going to stand trial for emma's murder and the defense team would have to look at
36:17the evidence and essentially question it test it and the main part of the evidence were these recordings
36:23from the cafe worryingly what transpired was the experts that the senior officers had used to
36:32transcribe the recordings were in fact turkish-speaking officers whose grasp of turkish actually wasn't
36:39fluent one of the police officers whilst he was of turkish descent he only had an o-level in the
36:45subject
36:46of the turkish language another officer again of turkish descent had to confess that his knowledge of
36:52the language was at best limited so it was far from the best experts in the land independent
37:00translators are brought in to transcribe the recordings in preparation for the trial
37:05the independent experts come in they listen to the recordings and they say
37:12what is alleged to have been said here is not obvious we can't say that this is what is being
37:18said it's quite clear that none of us is being said the other situation was that yes emma colzel's
37:25blood was found in the turkish cafe but you have to remember that police knew that sex workers had been
37:31taken there in the past that does not necessarily prove that she was killed there the other issue
37:38in regards to the clothing and key ring found at the casino they were never 100 confirmed to belong
37:45to emma colwell the police found them and put two and two together and thought well these have to be
37:50emma's but they were never independently verified as having belonged to emma colwell at this point
37:56obviously that line of inquiry has completely collapsed which is unusual because generally speaking
38:05all the evidence is checked and double checked to make sure that we've got it right this strand of
38:14the inquiry collapsed very very quickly you've now got the whole situation here that you've got the money
38:23been spent the four million pounds that have been spent on this operation alone not the original
38:28operation grail so what do they do we've got the wrong people we've got no evidence it's fallen through
38:34what do we do it's quite an embarrassment for that sio
38:40hindsight is a wonderful thing it's not like this was built on no foundations this was built on
38:45some foundation the problem was that it went further than what it should have if the police had got
38:51the independent experts in at an earlier stage to make the translations and to transcribe the audio
38:57recordings and if they had turned around and said this is not going to get the court we can't hear
39:02anything this is not what is being said this is inaccurate it may not have went as far the situation
39:09now was that the evidence they had against these four men was essentially rubbished meaning that the case
39:17against them collapsed they were now to be released it is strange and questionable as to when the
39:24turkish men are eliminated and exonerated as suspects that they didn't return to the alternative
39:32and a very strong suspect in ian packer that in itself is strange because there was so much pointing to
39:40packer
39:43though suspicion remains towards packer nothing happens for almost 15 years
39:50in 2019 ian packer approaches the bbc and he approaches a well-known journalist
39:57called samantha poling and he wants to tell his side of the story he wants to clear his name
40:03and he feels her interviewing him is the best way to achieve that in the production of this particular
40:11documentary ian packer decides that he will voluntarily appear and openly admits that he knows emma openly
40:20admits that he uses prostitutes but says he is never being violent towards them and he certainly has never
40:28right to any of them if ian packer had been raised as a suspect by detectives originally one of the
40:36processes that they would go through is to build up a picture of his life trying to understand if there's
40:42a pattern of behavior that didn't take place because he wasn't raised as a suspect but those making the
40:49documentary went through that process trying to build up that picture of him what samantha poling did
40:56was samantha poling went and spoke to as many people as she could about ian packer and far from
41:01a man who denied being sexually violent or abusive to women who had never raped a woman who had never
41:07hurt a woman she found a truckload of circumstantial evidence from people who had had experiences with
41:14ian packer very negative experiences one sex worker told her that ian packer had got her inside his
41:20van and had attempted to strangle her and she was only saved when a security guard
41:25banged on the van and she managed to escape another one told about being taken behind some shops
41:31ian packer had tried to force her onto her knees and she managed to escape and when she was running
41:37in the street packer was running after her shouting threats she was building this picture of a very very
41:43dangerous man someone that was controlling someone that was aggressive and someone that was violent
41:53a woman called magdalene roberts is interviewed as part of the documentary she knew packer when she
41:59was a child ian packer had become a friend to her family and she had a very disturbing experience with
42:07ian packer to tell she said that packer would sexually harass her and she's 14 years of age at
42:15this point he would sexually harass her he would intimidate her she would wake up in the middle of
42:21the night to find him standing by her bed staring at her that then escalates to him sexually assaulting
42:28magdalene magdalene and eventually raping her in her own home she told her family what had happened
42:36and they basically said there you know you know you're making it up but they didn't really believe
42:41her but 10 months after the murder of emma colwell magdalene roberts reports her rape by
42:50ian packer to the police and the police unfortunately do nothing with it on camera samantha poling
42:59confronts ian packer with her findings his decision to participate in the documentary would be his
43:05downfall whilst he's happy to say yes i knew emma yes i visit sex workers what he's not expecting is
43:13the fact that hang on a minute we know you're violent we know you're a rapist we know that you've
43:17actually committed rape we know that you actually raped a girl when she was 14. he is sitting there
43:23being hit with everything and that must have taken him by surprise he was dumbfounded and really taken
43:30aback when she told him that she believed he was a dangerous man and that he was dangerous to women
43:36and that he had lied to her and that he had questions to answer regarding the death of emma colwell
43:42shortly after the documentary is published 13 years after emma's murder an ex-partner of packer comes
43:49forward and tells police that he had attacked her he actually was jailed for attacking his um his former
43:57partner he then subsequently post that is charged with the murder of emma colwell and the interviews he
44:04gave to samantha pauline uh form part of the evidence ian can you describe the relationship to
44:10me with emma colwell could you provide a description of emma to me can you confirm when you first met
44:21on the 28th of february 2022 ian packer was convicted of emma's murder and he was also convicted
44:30of 33 other counts relating to assaults sexual assaults and over his lifetime he had targeted and
44:39attacked 22 women ian packer was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 36 years it
44:48has turned out that he has become one of the most prolific rapists and sex offenders in modern scottish
44:54history he has put himself in the frame for a murder that he committed some many years ago
45:07and i find it astonishing that he would do such a thing and unbelievable when i look at ian packer
45:15i see
45:15a sexual predator who was driven by his need for power and control over vulnerable women sex workers
45:2514 year old girl people that he could easily prey on and the fact that he was allowed to keep
45:32carrying
45:33on his crimes he was almost emboldened and i think that's the biggest tragedy here of how many victims
45:40that fell foul of him when they didn't need to for the family they would have undoubtedly mixed feelings
45:49about his conviction they would be that satisfaction that eventually someone has faced justice for emma's
45:55murder but he was allowed to live for that interim period he was allowed out and about to live his
46:02life
46:03for life that emma will never lead
46:09you
46:41you
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