Emma Caldwell: Murder trial told that accused raped teenage girl

The Emma Caldwell murder trial has been told that the man accused of killing her, raped another woman when she was just 14 or 15 years old.

Iain Packer, 51, was accused of repeatedly abusing the child whenever he "had the chance" in the early 1990s.

The alleged victim, now 48, told Glasgow High Court that her family had not believed her at the time.

Mr Packer denies killing sex worker Ms Caldwell and charges against 27 other women, three men and a teenage boy.

Ms Caldwell disappeared in Glasgow in April 2005. Her body was found five weeks later in remote woods in South Lanarkshire.

The woman who claims to have been raped by Mr Packer as a teenager was the first witness in court.

The jury heard that she was first abused at Mr Packer's family home in Glasgow's east end.

She alleges he pushed her onto the floor and tried to pull off her pyjama bottoms.

The woman said: "I was trying to pull my trousers up, trying to get away. I was trying to move across the room on my elbows."

She claimed Mr Packer, who would have been about 17 or 18 at the time, threatened he would tell others she had "started this".

The witness told jurors he would molest her "every single second that he had the chance".

Jurors heard that he raped her at a flat in Glasgow's west end when she was 14 or 15 after returning from a party.

She told the court: "I wanted him off me, I was tiny. He was very big and strong. I was not going anywhere."

The woman said she spoke to people close to her, but said she was not believed.

Mr Packer's parents were also said to have confronted her and wanted her "arrested" for making accusations.

Jurors heard that the woman gave statements to police in 2006 and in 2015.

In 2006, the woman said that when she was "a little bit older," Mr Packer had apologised to her for "what he had done".

Mr Packer's lawyer Ronnie Renucci KC suggested that he would have been taking an "enormous risk" to carry out attacks when others could have caught him.

The woman said that if that had happened, he would have pinned the blame on her.

The KC also put it to the woman that "at no time was there sexual contact" with Mr Packer. The woman denied this.

The court later heard pre-recorded evidence from a woman who had lived with Mr Packer.

She told how "95 per cent" of the phone bill was for sex lines and that he would take her driving in Glasgow's red light district.

The witness said he would find "any excuse" to be out at night and would sometimes be away for days.

She also alleged that Mr Packer repeatedly physically and sexually abused her during the 1990s.

It includes claims of being choked with a vacuum cleaner cable, having a cigarette stubbed out on her and being hit in the face with a boot.

She also claimed that Mr Packer had sex with her "whenever he wanted it" leaving her in tears.

Prosecutor Richard Goddard KC asked: "What was Iain Packer's reaction to you crying?"

She said: "Nothing, absolutely nothing. He did not care."

The woman said, looking back, she "cannot believe" she did not tell anyone at the time.

Mr Packer faces charges against multiple other women, three men and a teenage boy, between 1990 and 2016.

He denies strangling 27-year-old Emma Caldwell in Limefield Woods near Biggar in 2005 and concealing her body.

The murder charge alleges Mr Packer assaulted Ms Caldwell by restraining her, grabbing her wrists and strangling her with his hands and a cable.

He is then said to have dumped her naked body in the woods as well as disposing of her clothes, phone and other personal belongings.

He is alleged to have cleaned a car to "avoid detection, arrest and prosecution".

The trial, before judge Lord Beckett is expected to last until early March.