Jury urged to judge Emma Caldwell murder accused 'fairly'

A jury has been urged to judge the man accused of murdering Emma Caldwell in 2005 solely on the evidence presented in court.

Defence counsel Ronnie Renucci KC said it was for the prosecution to prove each of the 36 charges against Iain Packer beyond reasonable doubt.

And he told the court his client did not have to prove anything.

Mr Packer admitted he once indecently assaulted Ms Caldwell, 27, but said he did not murder the sex worker.

He denies a total of 36 charges against 25 women.

Ms Caldwell's body was found in Limefield Woods, near Biggar, South Lanarkshire, on 8 May 2005 - five weeks after she was last seen alive in Glasgow city centre.

She died from compression of the neck and a pathologist previously told the trial that manual strangulation had been the most likely cause.

During his closing speech at the High Court in Glasgow, Mr Renucci said Mr Packer had gone into the witness box to give evidence, exposing himself to cross examination, when he did not have to.

And he said it was not his client's position that all the women who had made allegations against him had lied.

Mr Renucci added: "Yes, he said some of them were lying but others were mistaken. He's saying they were wrong."

The KC asked the jury to examine the evidence alone and "not rumour, not gossip, not innuendo".

He said: "When the advocate depute suggests all the women can't be wrong, that doesn't mean they were all right."

Mr Renucci also told the jury it was a court of law, not a court of morals and urged them to put understandable feelings of sympathy for Ms Caldwell's mother to one side.

He said: "Iain Packer accepts that he didn't always behave well towards some of these women but that doesn't mean he's guilty of anything else, far less murder.

"I'm not standing her as an apologist for Iain Packer. I'm not standing here asking you to like him. I'm asking you to judge him fairly."

The defence counsel mentioned the account of one sex worker who, he said, initially got the date of an alleged incident involving her incorrect by a number of years.

Mr Renucci said if someone was "mistaken" with something as "fundamental" as that then they "surely can be wrong about other things".

The KC added the woman had claimed the man had initially seemed "nervous", something other sex workers who accused Mr Packer of offences had never alleged.

He said: "Whoever this guy was, it was not Iain Packer."

Mr Renucci will continue his closing speech on Wednesday.

Earlier, the jury was told the murder of Ms Caldwell was "the most horrifying chapter" in the sexual crimes of the man accused of strangling her.

Concluding his closing speech Advocate Depute Richard Goddard KC said there was "overwhelming" circumstantial evidence to convict Iain Packer.

Mr Goddard listed 17 circumstances which he said proved Mr Packer murdered Ms Caldwell in April 2005.

And he said the most compelling of all was the place where her body was found.

Mr Goddard told the jury there was nothing to suggest that anyone other than Mr Packer had a predilection for strangling sex workers in Limefield Woods.

Mr Goddard said that during the case, 16 sex workers had accused Mr Packer of being violent towards them.

And he added that 11 women had accused him of grabbing their throats and trying to throttle them.

Mr Goddard said the accused had taken sex workers to Limefield Woods and been violent towards them there.

He added: "It's precisely the same remote, random place where Iain Packer, a violent user of sex workers with a predilection for strangling females, took sex workers from Glasgow.

"There's not a scrap of evidence that anyone else did that. Just Iain Packer."

Mr Goddard also described evidence of a 97% match between soil from the scene and soil found in Mr Packer's van in 2005 as "utterly damning."

He added: "The strangulation and the murder of Emma Caldwell was the most horrifying chapter in what the evidence tells us was an appalling course of sexual violence towards women that lasted over a period of two decades."

Mr Packer has denied strangling Ms Caldwell with his hands and a cable, and disposing of her clothes and belongings to avoid arrest.

He has pled not guilty to a total of 36 charges of physical and sexual violence against multiple women.

Last week, under cross examination, he admitted that an incident in August 2004 involving Ms Caldwell was sexual assault.

He said he had gone with her behind billboards in the east end of Glasgow for sex but refused to stop when asked.