A jury has been told to find a man, who is accused of murdering a woman, guilty of indecently assaulting her several months before she died.

Iain Packer, 51, is on trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

He is accused of murdering Emma Caldwell, 27, who vanished in Glasgow in April 2005 and whose body was found in Limefield Woods in South Lanarkshire a month later.

Ms Caldwell was working as a sex worker in the Scottish city at the time she went missing.

Packer faces a total of 36 charges involving offences against 25 women, all of which he denies.

On Thursday, judge Lord Beckett instructed jurors they should find Packer guilty of indecently assaulting Ms Caldwell in Glasgow in August 2004 after he admitted the offence while giving evidence.

Ms Caldwell was said to have pulled away during an incident behind a billboard in the Barras area.

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A statement given by Packer to police said: “I continued to hold on to her waist. I was saying, ‘we have agreed before we started, I have paid for this’. She managed to pull away and was upset.”

Prosecutor Richard Goddard KC asked: “Why did you carry on?”

Packer replied: “I have no idea why I carried on. Something that I’m not very happy about, I’m ashamed of.”

Read more from the trial:
Soil found in suspect’s van ‘corresponded’ with body location
Packer insists ‘it wasn’t me who killed her’
‘No evidence’ linking Packer to Ms Caldwell on night she went missing

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Packer agreed his actions were “criminal”.

Mr Goddard said: “You accept your guilt for indecently assaulting Emma Caldwell?”

Packer replied “yes”, adding: “I apologise for that, it’s not something I’m proud of.”

Lord Beckett also directed the jury to convict Packer of a charge accusing him of abducting a woman, preventing her from leaving a house and detaining her against her will.

The judge is expected to complete his legal directions on Friday morning and the jury will then retire to consider their verdicts.

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