Woman made complaint against IOPC chief after he criticised police officers
A woman came forward to accuse the then head of Britain’s police watchdog of rape after seeing him criticising other police officers in the media, a court heard.
Michael Lockwood, 65, is said to have assaulted two 14-year-old girls while working as a lifeguard at a leisure centre in Hull, east Yorkshire, between 1979 and 1986.
He stood down as director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct in December 2022.
Lockwood denies three counts of rape and six counts of indecent assault between 1985 and 1986.
He also denies eight counts of indecent assault on a second girl between 1979 and 1981.
Lockwood was in his twenties when he touched the first girl in the toilet at the sports centre and in his car before raping her on the floor of a storeroom, jurors have heard.
In the early eighties he was studying at Hull University and by the mid-eighties was working as a senior auditor at Humberside County Council while still working part time in the leisure centre.
Lockwood admits having sex with one of the girls – but not until she was 16.
A friend of the girl allegedly assaulted in the mid-80s said in a statement read to court today (thurs) that in their youth the woman had told her that she lost her virginity when she was 14.
She later told her that she believed what had happened to her was child abuse, the court heard.
The woman said: ‘She told me when she was 13 to 14 she was in a relationship with a much older man and she believed this man had groomed and raped her.’
She said the woman had told her that the man was called ‘Mike’ and worked as a swimming instructor.
She said the woman had told her she ended the relationship after seeing Lockwood coming out of some bushes with one of her school friends.
She later told her she had used Google to search for Lockwood and found that he ‘looked the same.’
She found articles about Lockwood speaking as head of the IOPC, the court heard.
The woman said: ‘Mike was saying the police were corrupt and in the wrong and she didn’t think it was right he should be criticising others after what he had done to her.’
Another friend said she had been on a camping trip with the alleged victim in the 1990s when in the night the victim told her that when she was 14 she had been ‘involved sexually with a man who worked as a lifeguard.’
The woman said: ‘She said she had come to realise as she grew older that she was not even important to him.
‘She said they had sex on more than one occasion.
‘At the time she was incredibly embarrassed and said she felt ashamed of herself and asked me not to tell anyone else, which I never did.’
The alleged victim had also told a former partner and other friends she had been abused as a teen, the court heard.
One friend said: ‘She told me his name was Michael and he was in a position of authority and he was influencing law even after what he had done to her.’
In a prepared statement given to police, Lockwood said: ‘The allegations against me are completely inconsistent with everything I stood for at the time and have stood for since, especially in my 40 years of public service.
‘I think it is important to take my work and career into account when considering these allegations.’
In another statement, he alleged that one of the alleged victims’ friends had ‘stalked’ him when he worked at the leisure centre and had continued to send him unwanted letters in the years since.
He said: ‘I would describe her as obsessed.
‘She hung around inside and outside the leisure centre by herself and with friends.
‘Sometimes she would spend hours outside looking through the windows into the pool area.’
He said his workmates would tease him about the girl’s interest and she would stalk him on his running routes.
He said the girl, who he said was 18 or 19 at the time, would turn up outside his house and he would pretend he was not there.
He said ‘[The woman] has continued her obsession and tried to talk to me regularly sending me letters over the past 20 years even though I have never responded to any contact since the 1980s.’
He claimed the other alleged victim had always consented and he firmly believed she was 16 when they started their relationship.
‘I cannot understand why 40 years later she is now making these allegations,’ he said.
The married father-of-two took up the £190,000 IOPC post in January 2018.
He stepped down as news of the investigation into him was made public.
Lockwood was born in Newcastle in 1959 and went to Hull University between 1978 and 1981 where he completed a degree in Geography and History.
He joined the National Audit Office as a trainee and moved around the country, then began working as working as an auditor for Humberside Council in the 1980s.
Lockwood, of Epsom, Surrey, denies fourteen counts of indecent assault and three of rape.
The trial continues tomorrow (fri).
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