'Old-boy network' blocking police complaints - victim

Rape victim Magdalene Robertson has called for the scrapping of the police watchdog

One of the first known victims of murderer and serial rapist Iain Packer has claimed an “old-boy network” is preventing complaints about police conduct being properly investigated.

Magdalene Robertson, who complained about the officers who investigated her case, also said police were connected through groups including masonic lodges and golf clubs.

She told MSPs that police “do not want to be blamed” for problems with investigations and claimed the police watchdog Pirc deliberately caused delays.

A spokesperson for Pirc said it had told Ms Robertson that Police Scotland “did not handle either of her complaints to a reasonable standard”.

Ms Robertson was one of three people with previous complaints about police conduct who spoke to Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday about the proposed Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill.

The bill, which aims to strengthen public confidence in policing and investigations into police misconduct, proposes to give additional functions to Pirc – the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner.

However, Ms Robertson said the watchdog should be “scrapped” with something completely new in its place “based on different morals and from a different group”.

She said: “What we’ve got organisational culture in the police department where you do not get ahead unless you fit in with that culture. Pirc is set up of ex-police – that’s the same culture, the same mind set.

“When you move over to Pirc, there’s the old-boy network.”

She later added: “We need to look at these networks that the police are involved in as well. These are old-boy networks.

“These are people that have worked with each other, their families have worked with each other, they’re connected, they’re in the same golf course, they could be in the same masonic lodge. They could just know each other from media connections, football teams that are involved in different ways.

“When you have a culture in organisations such as the police that’s being going on all these hundreds of years, people want to protect it. They don’t want blame.”

Iain Packer was convicted of 33 charges of of physical and sexual violence against 22 women

Ms Robertson previously told the BBC she gave a statement to police in 2006 about being attacked by Iain Packer – but heard nothing more until after he was charged with killing Emma Caldwell in 2022.

In February Packer was jailed for 36 years for Ms Caldwell’s murder – which was among 33 charges of physical and sexual violence against 22 women, including Ms Robertson.

She complained about the handling of her case and made an unsuccessful freedom of information request about Pirc’s relationship with investigating officers.

The complaints process, she said, was like being on a “hamster wheel” designed to lengthen investigation times.

And she claimed Pirc had “ignored” her calls for her complaint to be looked at again following Packer’s conviction.

She said: “It was an exercise to deplete me of energy so I had nowhere else to go and to deplete me of the time that I had, because everything is time-barred.

“So if I wanted to take the police to court for this, I have to go through this process, that takes away that time. That’s the intention of Pirc for me, I don’t see it as anything else.”

A spokesperson for Pirc said: “A key part of Pirc’s remit is to review the way policing bodies in Scotland handle complaints made about them by members of the public.

“We received a request for a complaint handling review in respect of two complaints made by Ms Roberston regarding Police Scotland.

“In June 2021, we issued a report to Ms Robertson which found that Police Scotland did not handle either of her complaints to a reasonable standard. As a result, we made recommendations to Police Scotland which were subsequently implemented by Police Scotland.”

Emma Caldwell’s family have called for an inquiry into the police investigation into her death

Officers initially arrested four Turkish men in connection with Ms Caldwell’s murder but they were released a year later when the case against them collapsed.

Her family believe that a “toxic culture of misogyny and corruption” within what was then Strathclyde Police meant that women and girls who came forward to speak up against Packer at the time were ignored and he was dismissed as a suspect.

They say this allowed Packer to continue raping other women after murdering Emma and have called for a public inquiry into the police investigation.

Chief Constable Jo Farrell has apologised to Mrs Caldwell and her family for the policing failures, and backed their call for a full inquiry.

Are the police fully investigated, if they’ve failed to do their job? Or is their watchdog, Pirc, toothless, weak and in need of reform?

Today MSPs heard troubling evidence from three key witnesses.

One was the victim of a notorious sexual predator.

Another, the grieving mother of a young man, found dead.

The third, the owner of a garage, apparently torched by criminals.

Three very different cases, then.

But all three make the same basic claim: that they were let down by botched police inquiries, and then faced years of strife, caught up in a ponderous complaints system.

At times, some MSPs seemed shocked by what they were hearing.

Does this suggest the police can sometimes act with impunity, or close ranks when things go wrong?

One committee member, the matter-of-fact John Swinney, told a witness she’d made a powerful case for a “hurricane of fresh air into the system”.