Murder trial hears from alleged rape victim

A man allegedly raped a teenage girl more than decade before he is said to have murdered a woman. Iain Packer was accused of repeatedly molesting and abusing the child when he “had the chance” in the early 1990s.

Jurors heard he went on to rape her at a flat in Glasgow’s west end when she was 14 or 15 with him having returned from a Halloween party.

Describing the sex attack, the alleged victim recalled: “I wanted him off me. I was tiny, minute.

“He was very big and strong. I was not going anywhere.”

Packer is on trial facing a total of 46 charges involving multiple women and include the murder of 27 year-old Emma Caldwell at Limefield Woods in Biggar, South Lanarkshire on April 5 2005.

The 51 year-old denies all accusations.

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

As well as that accusation, he is also charged with using lewd behaviour towards the then girl and indecently assaulting her.

She had first got to know Packer around 1990.

The woman identified him in court today.

The witness claimed she was first abused at Packer’s then family home in Glasgow’ east end after he had asked her to come downstairs because another girl wanted to speak to her.

But, there was no one there and she alleged Packer pushed her onto the floor and tried to pull off her pyjama bottoms.

The woman recalled: “I was trying to pull my trousers up, trying to get away.

“I was trying to move across the room on my elbows and get away back up into the room.”

She claimed Packer threatened he would tell others she had “started this”.

The woman went on to recall being in a vehicle with Packer and him offering to give her a driving lesson if she gave him “a kiss”.

She described that alleged incident as “horrible” and that “his hands were all over” her.

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

The woman told people close to her what allegedly occurred, but claimed she was not believed.

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

The rape was said to have happened after Packer returned from the Halloween party for a “trivial reason”.

She had been lying in a bed and Packer allegedly stated she wanted her to be his girlfriend.

The witness agreed - her "logic" being she could then dump him and he would leave her alone.

The woman claimed Packer went on to force himself on her.

Prosecutor Richard Goddard KC asked: "Do you remember saying anything to him?"

She replied: "I wanted him off me. It is difficult to remember, but I would have been telling him to get off me and leave me alone."

Jurors heard how the woman gave statements to police in 2006 and then again in 2015.

In the earlier one when describing the alleged rape, the trial heard she said: "I remember saying I was not ready. I was quite clear that I did not want to have sex with him."

The woman also claimed in 2006 that after the attack when she was "a little bit older" Packer "apologised" for "what he had done".

Mr Goddard: "Is it your position that, when you were a child, this man - Iain Packer - sexually abused you when you were 14 and 15?"

She replied: "Absolutely, he did."

The prosecutor: "He went as far as him forcing you to have sexual intercourse at some point in 1990?"

The woman: "Yes."

Packer's KC Ronnie Renucci later put to the witness that "at no time was there sexual contact" with him.

She denied this. Mr Renucci also suggested Packer would have been taking an "enormous risk" when others may have been in the same place as them and caught him.

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

The murder allegation Packer faces is that he assaulted Miss Caldwell by restraining her, grabbing her wrists and strangling her with his hands and a cable.

Packer is then said to have dumped her naked body at the woods as well as got rid of her clothes, phone and other personal belongings. He is further claimed to have cleaned a car.

This was all allegedly done to "conceal and destroy evidence" as well as to "avoid detection, arrest and prosecution".

The trial, before judge Lord Beckett, continues.

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