Ex-police watchdog chief raped girl, 14, while seeing another victim, court told
The former head of the police watchdog allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl while seeing another victim, a court has heard.
Michael Lockwood, 65, faces 17 charges – for three rapes and 14 indecent assaults – relating to two 14-year-old girls between 1979 and 1986.
At the time, he was aged in his 20s and worked part-time as a lifeguard at a leisure centre near Hull in East Yorkshire where he allegedly met and sexually abused the girls.
Lockwood went on to have a “distinguished” career in local government before becoming director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which is the police complaints watchdog for England and Wales.
One of the alleged victims, now aged in her 50s, came forward to claim she was repeatedly raped in a store cupboard and indecently assaulted in Lockwood’s Ford Capri.
A second woman was traced by police having already read about the initial allegations against Lockwood in the Hull Daily Mail.
She met him in the late 1970s and was still seeing him after she turned 16 in the belief they were in a “proper relationship”, the court has heard.
In a videoed police interview played in court, she said that she had thought Lockwood was “wonderful” and had “loved him”.
Now, she felt that she had been “groomed”.
She said he would have known her age because he helped her with maths before she sat her GCSEs while he was studying at Hull University.
She added: “It was not a case of lying about how old I was.”
Giving evidence in court, the woman read a list of “likes” and “dislikes” about Lockwood that had been written in her fourth-form school exercise book.
The list of likes included his “personality”, “bum” and “hairy chest” and the dislikes included “never goes anywhere”, “the way he treats me” and “he lies”.
Cross-examining, Sarah Elliott KC asked how the woman felt when she first saw Lockwood had been charged with offences against another girl in the 1980s.
Ms Elliott said: “One of the things that must have been going through your mind, there was some sort of overlap between what was being alleged and you going out with him?
“You must have been upset at the thought that perhaps there was somebody else at the time you believed you were in an exclusive relationship with him?”
The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, replied: “I was concerned.”
She went on to say that she had learned Lockwood was engaged to someone after she started seeing him.
Ms Elliott asserted: “I suggest to you, your relationship with him did not turn into a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship until after your 16th birthday.
“In fact, once that friendship moved into a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship it took some time before you and he had full sexual intercourse.”
The witness said: “No, that’s not correct.”
Prosecutor Sarah Przybylska asked the witness if Lockwood had ever told her he was engaged to someone else.
The woman said he had not and she only found out from someone else after they began a romantic relationship.
It is alleged Lockwood pulled her into a male toilet cubicle at the leisure centre where he kissed and sexually touched her.
Jurors heard it was common knowledge among fellow lifeguards who sang about them being “locked in the lavatory” together.
It is also claimed Lockwood indecently assaulted the girl in the back of his mother’s car after she turned 15.
The court heard how their relationship ended when Lockwood went to live in Epsom in Surrey.
In a police interview last year, Lockwood said he was “shocked and upset” at the woman’s allegations.
He accepted they had been in a sexual relationship but insisted that at the time he believed she was over 16.
He has pleaded not guilty to eight indecent assaults relating to the witness on dates between August 1979 and August 1981.
Lockwood, of Epsom, Surrey, also denies three counts of rape and six counts of indecent assault relating to the other complainant between October 1985 and March 1986.
The Old Bailey trial before Mr Justice Bennathan continues.
