Murder accused took Caldwell to area body was found multiple times, court told

A man accused of murdering a sex worker told police he had taken her to the area where she was ultimately found dead around six times, a court has heard.

Iain Packer, 50, attended Cathcart Police Station on March 13, 2007 to give a voluntary witness statement to detective David Barr.

He had previously given a statement on August 4, 2006 at the same police station.

Now retired, Mr Barr, 58, gave evidence at the High Court in Glasgow on Friday, where he was asked a series of questions by advocate depute Richard Goddard KC about Packer’s statement.

Packer is accused of murdering Emma Caldwell, 27, in 2005, and faces 46 charges involving a number of women, including rape as well as abduction and assault.

He is accused of strangling Miss Caldwell with his hands and a cable, assaulting her, compressing her wrists, intending to rape her and murdering her at an area of woodland known as Limefield woods in South Lanarkshire on April 5, 2005.

He denies all the charges against him, and has lodged special defences of incrimination, consent, defence of another and self-defence.

Mr Goddard took Mr Barr through the statement that Packer had provided to police in 2007.

He asked Mr Barr if he remembered Packer telling him he got his “kicks” out of taking sex workers to Limefield woods.

Mr Barr said: “Yes.”

Mr Goddard said: “Finally he admits one of the female sex workers he has taken to this remote spot is Emma Caldwell?”

Mr Barr said: “Yes.”

Packer told Mr Barr, the court heard: “Although I was with her at that location, I wasn’t in any way responsible for her death.

“I had no idea that her body was where I went with the prostitutes.”

Later on Friday, the court heard Packer told detectives he had been with Miss Caldwell “at most” 15 times.

Mr Goddard said Packer told police: “It is hard to keep track of all the girls.

“At most, I would say six times, when we went down there I would meet Emma in town.

“When she got in (my van) I would ask her if she has been busy and ‘have you got time to do a run’.

“Emma was always okay to go with me for that reason.

“It was always my idea to go down there, never Emma’s.

“Emma was the first prostitute I took there.”

Packer told police in 2007 that he had come across the spot by accident.

Mr Goddard read from his police statement: “That time with Emma, I had never been there before.

“I loved it because of the buzz I got out of it.

“It was the same area I took the other girls.

“I never had the same problems with Emma as I had with others. She was always happy to go down.”

He had previously told police he did not know her, but then said he had met with her 10 or 11 times.

Packer told police he had read about Miss Caldwell’s disappearance in the newspapers and had seen the publicity, the court heard.

He told the detective he used sex workers two to three times per week and it was like an “addiction”.

Earlier on Friday, the court heard Packer told Mr Barr he lied about not knowing Miss Caldwell.

Mr Goddard read out part of Packer’s statement to police in 2006, which said: “In my previous statement, I told police I did not know Emma Caldwell.

“This is a lie. I did know her. I have been with her 10 or 11 times, maybe more or maybe less.”

The court heard Packer had met Miss Caldwell at Glasgow Green for the first time in 2004 or 2005, where he said she approached him and asked if he was “looking for business”.

Packer told the detective he thought Miss Caldwell was “quite pretty” and “presentable”.

He paid Miss Caldwell for a sex act, he told the officer.

The court heard he met Miss Caldwell a few months later and made another sexual request, which he said she agreed to.

Packer told the officer he started having sex but said she then told him she did not want to do it anymore.

The court heard Packer told the detective he carried on, and told Miss Caldwell “We agreed before we started” and that he had “paid” and wanted something.

The court also heard Packer had taken five young women in total to woods near Biggar, South Lanarkshire.

He told police in August 2006 that he “became angry” with one girl because she did not want to take her clothes off and “banged” his fists on his steering wheel.

In the statement, he told police he “loved the thrill” of using sex workers and “the buzz I got” from doing so.

He also told police in the interview that he used sex chat lines “just for the thrill of it” and he would perform a sex act on himself while using them.

The court also heard Packer took out personal loans to fund his use of sex workers.

The trial, before Lord Beckett, continues.