Achi news desk-
This morning Magdalene Robertson, who has waived her anonymity, will tell the Holyrood justice committee about the process she went through when making complaints to the police about how her case was initially mishandled by officers.
She told police in 2006 that Packer sexually assaulted and raped her, and reported the assaults again in 2015.
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But she was forced to wait until February 28 this year before Packer found her guilty of three charges against her in the same trial where he was found guilty of murdering Ms Caldwell.
Ms Robertson is giving evidence to MSPs on the Holyrood justice committee examining the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill.
The Bill seeks to create a statutory obligation for Police Scotland to have a code of ethics, placing a statutory duty of honesty on individual police officers and Police Scotland as an organisation.
It also proposes changes to deal with aspects of police conduct including clarifying that the Police Authority of Scotland is responsible for the unlawful conduct of Chief Constables, and providing a power to allow misconduct procedures to be applied to former police officers as takes place in England.
The bill also seeks to introduce an advisory list for police officers who are under investigation for alleged serious misconduct, and an exclusion list for officers who have been dismissed, or would have been dismissed, due to serious misconduct.
Last week, The Herald revealed that Holyrood’s finance committee had instructed civil servants to come back with new costs for the reforms after a senior official admitted the initial costs were out of date and did not take into account various factors including increases in inflation and inflation. police training.
The Scottish Government had estimated that the annual cost of overhauling the police complaints system would be between £520,474 and £1.41million, while Police Scotland had suggested that the reforms would cost the police a minimum of £5million .
As well as hearing from Ms Robertson, MSPs on the criminal justice committee will also hear from two other people with experience of the police complaints system, Stephanie Bonner and Bill Johnstone.
Ms Bonner, whose son Rhys died in 2019, had already raised a petition on the issue of ‘unexplained deaths’ and Police Scotland’s treatment of families.
Mr Johnstone’s classic car repair and sales garage was destroyed by fire in 2009. He later learned that no crime report was filed for this incident. He feels that officers have failed to properly investigate this incident.
The Committee will also consider privately how to implement the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act.
Last month the Scottish Government announced that an independent public inquiry led by a judge will be held into the way the police handled the investigation into Ms Caldwell’s murder.
The announcement came as Scotland’s senior law officer said she believed there was enough evidence in 2008 to prosecute Ms Caldwell’s killer.
Ms Caldwell’s mother, Margaret Caldwell, has campaigned tirelessly for nearly two decades to bring her daughter’s killer to justice.
She listened from the public gallery as Scotland’s justice secretary, Angela Constance, told MSPs: “There can be no doubt of the serious failings that brought a grieving family to fight for justice.”
The inquiry is expected to examine ongoing police failings which came to light during the Packer trial.
Ms Caldwell was living in a hostel in Glasgow when she disappeared in April 2005. Her mother told the trial that her daughter had started taking heroin to numb her grief after her sister’s death and was funding her drug habit through sex work. . Ms Caldwell’s naked body was found five weeks after she went missing, in Limefield Woods near Biggar, South Lanarkshire.
Police Scotland apologized for how the original investigation was handled and for letting Ms Caldwell and other women down.
Ms Caldwell’s family said she had been failed by the police because of a “toxic culture of falsehood and corruption” which left Packer free to rape other women.
The 27-year-old’s death had been one of Scotland’s most prominent unsolved murders.
