Emma Caldwell: Man accused of sex worker murder apologises for sexually assaulting her year before her death
The attack was, he said, "something that I'm not very happy about, I'm ashamed of. I apologise for that, it's not something I'm proud of".
Wednesday 14 February 2024 16:10, UK
A man accused of murdering a Glasgow sex worker has apologised in court for a sexual assault on her the year before she died.
Iain Packer admitted he attacked Emma Caldwell during his second day of evidence at the High Court in Glasgow on Wednesday, and agreed with a prosecutor that what he did was "criminal".
Packer, 51, faces a total of 36 charges involving offences against multiple women.
Ms Caldwell, 27, went missing in Glasgow in April 2005 and her body was found in Limefield Woods, near Roberton, less than an hour's drive from the city, a month later.
Prosecutor Richard Goddard KC asked Packer if he accepted he was guilty of indecently assaulting Ms Caldwell the year before after paying her £30 to perform a sex act on him behind a billboard in the Barras area.
He told police at the time "I continued to hold onto her waist. I was saying, 'we have agreed before we started, I have paid for this'. She managed to pull away and was upset."
It was, he said, "something that I'm not very happy about, I'm ashamed of. I apologise for that, it's not something I'm proud of".
A friend of Ms Caldwell said in a witness statement read in court: "I thought he was stalking her or obsessed with her because he would not leave her alone, it got to the point he would drive up behind other punters and basically scare them off."
Packer denied that Ms Caldwell was someone he particularly looked out for.
Mr Goddard asked Packer how many women alleged they were strangled by him.
The prosecutor said: "Could it be 11? Are they all lying?"
Packer said: "It can't be a coincidence if it never happened."
In 1999, a sex worker reported Packer to police alleging she was raped - and handed over identity documents taken from his work van.
Mr Goddard said: "Might it be that she took these documents to have paperwork to report a serious rape committed by you?"
Packer said: "I've no idea."
He claimed to have taken six different women to Limefield Woods on six occasions, but only named Emma Caldwell.
A sex worker who Packer admitted taking there, said she "thought he was going to batter f*** out of me. I was petrified out in the middle of nowhere nearly stripped with that nutter".
In Packer's version, he told the young woman: "This is the second time you've f* done this to me, just take your clothes off and get it f* over and done with."
Another alleged victim said Packer chose girls who were "young, vulnerable and on drugs", after an encounter in a sauna in 2005, the court heard.
The trial continues in front of Judge Lord Beckett.