Bid for outside police force to investigate Emma Caldwell inquiry stalls

An investigation into the original inquiry into the murder of Emma Caldwell has stalled because prosecutors cannot find a police force from outside Scotland to take on the task.

Scotland's top law officer, Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, announced two years ago she wanted an independent inquiry into potential criminality by officers involved in the case.

However, the Crown Office has told BBC Scotland News that it has been unable to get an English or Welsh force to do the job because of pressures on UK-wide policing.

Iain Packer was convicted of murdering Emma in 2024, 19 years after he was first identified as a suspect.

Police Scotland have previously apologised for how the original inquiry was handled, by what was then Strathclyde Police.

A BBC Scotland investigation helped lead to Packer's arrest, while former detectives involved in the inquiry said senior officers had told them not to pursue Packer as a suspect.

The 27-year-old sex worker was found murdered in South Lanarkshire in 2005, but it took 19 years for Iain Packer to be convicted of the crime - a time in which he sexually assaulted multiple other women.

The update from the Crown Office came on the same day as Emma Caldwell's mother Margaret and other family members met Lord Scott, who is chairing a public inquiry into the case, in Glasgow.

Aamer Anwar, the lawyer for Emma's mother Margaret Caldwell, said pursuing the police investigation was "absolutely farcical".

He added: "The family has repeatedly stated to the solicitor general that she is not going to be successful in getting an outside police force from England and Wales to carry out an investigation into Strathclyde Police or others.

"It's two years now and still no word of it. We know from private discussions with Police Scotland that this is not viable."

He said the police investigation should be paused until the public inquiry has finished, and determined if there was criminality.

Margaret Caldwell was joined by her grandson Stewart McGrory, and her brother Jim Coyle for the meeting.

Anwar said the family were treated with warmth and compassion by the judge, and he had told them that "Emma's family will be key participants in the inquiry".

It was not clear exactly what being a key participant would mean in the context of the inquiry.

However Anwar added: "Many powerful men have made promises to Margaret that have repeatedly been betrayed - the test of this inquiry will be whether it follows the evidence."

The Scottish government ordered a judge-led public inquiry into the original police investigation in March 2024.

It will examine what went wrong in the investigation, including the direction given by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

The Caldwell family have warned on several occasions they fear that as the terms of reference for the inquiry cover Strathclyde Police, it could mean Police Scotland avoids responsibility for any failures that occurred after the national force formed in 2013.

Anwar said it would be a "travesty of justice" and a betrayal of Emma Caldwell if Police Scotland were excluded from the investigation.

He added: "If this inquiry is to pursue the truth, then it must look not only at Strathclyde Police, but what happened when Police Scotland took over responsibility.

"Sir Stephen House was chief constable of Strathclyde Police from 2007, and then chief constable of Police Scotland when it was established in 2013.

"Many women suffered unimaginable pain and fear at the hands of Iain Packer. Had the police and Crown done their job properly, he would have been arrested in 2008 and not left free to rape and terrorise until his arrest in February 2022."

In February 2024 Packer was convicted of offences against a total of 22 women, including 11 rapes.

He was first interviewed by detectives a month after Emma's body was found, while several women had previously raised concerns about Packer - who regularly paid sex workers and had a reputation for being aggressive.

However police instead focused on four Turkish men, who were initially charged with Emma Caldwell's murder in 2007. The case against them collapsed the following year.

The murder case went cold until the lord advocate ordered police to re-open the investigation in 2015 - the same year that the Sunday Mail newspaper named former sign fitter Packer as a "forgotten suspect" in the murder inquiry.

In 2018, he contacted the BBC asking to tell his side of the story in an attempt to clear his name.

He was interviewed twice by journalist Sam Poling, whose documentary Who Killed Emma? was broadcast the following year.

One of Packer's former partners told the murder trial that he was "white as a sheet" after the second interview.

He was arrested and charged over Emma Caldwell's murder in February 2022.