The Emma Caldwell murder suspect was as "white as a sheet" after being interviewed by a TV journalist about the killing.

Iain Packer was said to have commented to a woman he knew afterwards: "They are blaming me for Emma."

She today told jurors: "My gut instinct was this was not going away. It was written all over his face."

The woman - who alleges she was previously attacked by Packer - said he claimed separately he was looking after a child at the time Miss Caldwell went missing or may have been working in Aberdeen.

Packer, 51, denies a total of 46 charges involving multiple women and including the murder of 27-year-old Miss Caldwell - a sex worker - at Limefield Woods in Biggar, South Lanarkshire on April 5, 2005.

The witness - now aged 49 - had previously lived with Packer having initially got to know him in 2012.

She was today asked about interviews Packer had done with a journalist called Samantha Poling for a BBC documentary in 2019 concerning Miss Caldwell.

The woman said she had gone with him but was not allowed to join him while being quizzed.

Prosecutor Richard Goddard asked her about Packer's "demeanour" after the second of those interviews in 2019.

She told the High Court in Glasgow: "His face was grey.

"He had walked down to the cafe after 15-20 minutes in the interview.

"He was white as a sheet. You could see something had gone badly wrong.

"It was as if it was all closing in on him.

"He was saying: 'They are blaming me for Emma'. They kept asking the same questions over and over again.

"My gut instinct was this is not going away.”

The woman later added: “It was written all over his face…that he was being found out. That is the only words I can describe.”

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Mr Goddard put to the witness that Miss Caldwell had been a “topic of conversation” during the time they knew each other.

The prosecutor: “At the beginning, did he claim to you where he was at the time Emma went missing?”

The woman: “He said he was at home (with a child he knew) looking after her.”

Asked if his “story” later changed, she claimed Packer allegedly commented he was “up at work in Aberdeen or something”.

Packer’s lawyer Ronnie Renucci later quizzed the witness about how affected he apparently was after the interview.

The KC: “In effect, you understood he was saying that they were blaming him for Emma Caldwell’s murder.

“If someone is blaming you for that, it is not something that you would take well?”

She replied: “No.”

The woman earlier in her evidence accused Packer of choking her while she lay in bed after an argument.

She recalled: “I just closed my eyes. I could not move. What else could I do?

“I just froze and waited for it to be over.

“He had grabbed the windpipe part with two hands and squeezed really, really hard.”

She described Packer’s face being "totally blank" as he did this, but then it was as if “a light switched on”, he stopped and walked out.

He was said to have offered no reason as to why he had done it.

The trial, before Judge Lord Beckett, continues.