Emma's family said she had been failed by police due to a 'toxic culture of misogyny and corruption'.
Iain Packer has been jailed for at least 36 years for the murder of Emma Caldwell in remote woods 19 years ago.Police have apologised for how the original inquiry was handled and for letting down Emma and other victims.
Emma's body was found in the woods in May 2005, five weeks after the sex worker was last seen in Glasgow city centre. "I can breathe again and go on. She will always be in our thoughts. She will always be there. She will always be my Emma." "Instead of receiving justice and compassion, they were humiliated, dismissed and in some instances arrested, while the police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again."The judge added: "You have caused great harm to so many people as you indulged your pathologically selfish and brutal sexual desires."
The judge said Emma was taken from her family at a time when she was trying to take steps to change her life adding she was killed in "truly terrifying circumstances". Her mother, Margaret Caldwell, told the trial that she last saw her daughter when she dropped her off at the hostel on Sunday 3 April 2005.Packer, who was 32 at the time, had driven Emma to the remote forest near Biggar, where he strangled her and disposed of her naked body.
Police Scotland has apologised for how the original inquiry was handled by what was then Strathclyde Police. He started having sex with prostitutes when he was 18 and would drive to an area known as "the drag" looking to pick women up as often as he could afford. This was how he first met Emma. Police Scotland said it had been the "courage, resilience and determination shown by Emma's family, in particular her parents William and Margaret, and all those who survived Iain Packer's horrific catalogue of offending that got us to where we are today".
She wasn't alone. Packer committed sexual offences against at least 10 women after he left Emma's naked body in woods in South Lanarkshire.
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