Glasgow Crime Stories: The unsolved murder of Emma Caldwell

Emma Caldwell hadn't been seen for several days at the hostel in Inglefield Street, Govanhill where she lived and fears were growing for her safety.

Since 1991 seven other sex workers had gone missing in similar circumstances only to be found murdered.

One of the last recorded sightings of Emma was in nearby Butterbiggins Road around 11pm on Friday, April 4, 2005.

In the days after she was reported missing Margaret Caldwell and husband William, both from Erskine, drove endlessly around the streets of Glasgow hoping, in vain, to catch sight of their daughter.

Until her murder they were unaware that she had been forced on to the streets to feed her heroin habit.

It was a drug addiction which had developed after the death from cancer of her big sister Karen in 1998.

Emma was a former stable girl and keen horserider who kept in regular weekly contact with her parents despite her troubles. As a child she had enjoyed the Brownies and drama classes.

William would see her every Wednesday, while mum would see her at the weekend and being her home for a meal.

However when dad called her that week as normal there was no answer from her phone and Emma was reported missing.

Margaret Caldwell

Five weeks later on May 8 she was found strangled and naked in remote Roberton Woods, near Biggar in Lanarkshire by a man out walking his dog. Emma's pay-as-you-go mobile phone was missing.

The murder scene was more than 40 miles from Glasgow's city centre red light district where she worked.

What sort of deranged punter would drive a woman such a distance then kill her?

During the investigation police met a wall of silence in their hunt for the killer.

That was not surprising given the twilight world that sex workers and their clients then occupied.

In a bid to catch her murderer, detectives organised TV appeals, a £10,000 reward was offered and huge images of Emma were projected on to a block of flats.

In the first few days of their investigation Strathclyde Police spoke to men who were known to use sex workers like Emma.

It was an obvious starting point and soon provided results and a possible suspect.

In June that year one such client, a 33-year-old Lanarkshire man, was stopped for kerb-crawling.

He eventually admitted he was a regular client of Emma and would drive her and other prostitutes to Roberton for sex.

He was even able to show officers the spot where he took the girls, which was close to where Emma's naked body was found.

Detectives were also able to trace other sex workers who had been taken to to Roberton Woods by the same man.

This man was spoken to at least six times in a two year period between 2005 and 2007 but never charged.

Instead senior police officers concentrated their efforts on four Turkish nationals who used a community cafe in Bridge Street, Glasgow.

Emma and other prostitutes had been taken there in recent months and paid for sex.

The final call to Emma's mobile - at 11.20pm on April 4, 2005 - was traced to the same cafe.

It was also registered to a Turkish man living in the East End of Glasgow, one of the four under suspicion.

Murder squad detectives raided the man's home and spent nine days carrying out a fingertip search of his home, garden and driveway.

A double mattress, two cars and rubbish from bins were taken for forensic examination. However nothing incriminating was found.

A covert surveillance of people using the the cafe also began in August that year.

Forensic tests on a quilt cover taken from the centre had identified a spot of Emma's blood proving she had been there.

Bugs were planted in the cafe so that they could listen into their conversations.

The audio surveillance on the premises appeared to have recorded incriminating discussions of Emma's murder.

In August 2007 the four men were charged with strangling Emma in the Glasgow cafe before transporting her body to the woodland.

Their arrest meant that Emma's family could finally lay her to rest and she was buried in Inchinnan Cemetery in Renfrewshire.

The massive police operation had cost up to £4million and involved months of surveillance.

But the prosecution case collapsed after one of the defence lawyers for the four men questioned the accuracy of the taped conversations, which had been translated from Turkish into English.

It was claimed the four men were discussing Emma's murder in the cafe and wrapping her body up in a carpet.

But two Turkish language experts from Oxford University said they heard no mention of murder on the tapes and they were discussing ordinary things like football and carpets in general.

In July, 2008 the Crown office dropped the murder charges against all four men due to lack of evidence, having consulted with one of the Oxford language experts, Thereafter the investigation appeared to have ground to a halt.

However in 2009 the case took another dramatic twist when one of the four Turks charged with Emma's murder was convicted of raping two prostitutes and sexually assaulting three others at the same cafe.

His attacks on the other sex workers had emerged during the original police inquiry.

The High Court in Glasgow was told the accused - and other men - took the women to the cafe and he was sentenced to ten years in prison.

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In 2011 Emma's dad Willie died of cancer at the age of 62, an illness Margaret blamed on stress caused by her murder.

Two years later another of the four men accused of Emma's murder settled out of court after suing Strathclyde Police for £100,000.

He had spent 80 days in prison before the Crown dropped the charges and won the payout for false arrest.

Then in June 2015 the case took a further dramatic twist.

The then Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland ordered that Emma's murder be reinvestigated after details of the kerbcrawler and his relationship with the victim were given to a Sunday newspaper.

The revelations that he knew Emma and had driven her to Robertson Woods multiple times raised fresh concern about the original murder investigation.

Had police overlooked the client who should have been the main suspect to wrongly concentrate on the Turkish men?

A new police team begin a fresh forensic search at the murder scene in Roberton and hundreds of witnesses were reinterviewed.

Police Scotland also invited the Metropolitan Police to review their original investigation.

Meanwhile Emma's mum Margaret make a fresh appeal for information on BBC's Crimewatch.

She had never given up her fight for justice for her daughter.

In a rare and moving interview in February 2017, Margaret told of her 12 year battle for justice for Emma.

She also said she felt let down by the original Strathclyde Police investigation.

Margaret added:"We were a private family put in this terrible situation.

"It's not in my nature but I have to do it. I have to do it for Emma, for everyone who loved andcared for her.

"I find this very hard but I want to be strong. I want to be strong for Willie because he was so strong for me.

"And I want to be strong for Emma. She was our daughter and we loved her so much. And if I don't do this now, if I don't speak up for Emma, who will?."

In 2018 a report was submitted to the Crown Office with a named suspect. More than 5,700 witnesses had been spoken to during the new investigation and more than 4,000 hours of CCTV viewed However in the last three years there have been no significant developments. and no one has been charged or stood trial.

Earlier this month Margaret and her lawyer Aamer Anwar met with Scotland's new Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain in Edinburgh to discuss the unsolved murder.

Scotland's most senior law officer accepted that mistakes have been made with the original investigation.

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Speaking afterwards on behalf of Margaret Caldwell, Anwar said:"Emma was brutally murdered 16 years ago.

"Margaret feels betrayed by the original Strathclyde Police investigation but has confidence that the new Police Scotland investigation has left no stone unturned.

"There should never be a time limit on justice."