Ex-police watchdog chief allegedly raped a 14-year-old woman

The former head of Britain’s police watchdog allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl while he was dating another victim he had indecently assaulted, a court heard yesterday.

Michael Lockwood served as the director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) until 2022 when he was accused of abusing two 14-year-old girls. He denies all the charges.

The 65-year-old is alleged to have offered a ‘naïve’ teenager lifts in his Ford Capri before raping her in the storeroom of a leisure centre near Hull, where he was working as a lifeguard at the age of 26.

Yesterday a former girlfriend in a relationship with Lockwood at the time of the alleged attack said she too had been ‘groomed’ at the age of 14.

The alleged victim said Lockwood used to pull her into a toilet cubicle to touch her breasts when she was 14 in 1979 or 1980. 

Michael Lockwood, 65, was the director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) until 2022 when he was accused of abusing two 14-year-old girls

Humberside Police HQ where Lockwood worked as director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct

The 65-year-old is alleged to have offered a ‘naïve’ teenager lifts in his Ford Capri before raping her in the storeroom of a leisure centre near Hull

Jurors heard it was ‘common knowledge’ among fellow lifeguards and they even sang about them being ‘locked in the lavatory’ together at the leisure centre. 

Lockwood was aware of her age and would even come around to help her with maths homework before she sat her GCSEs, she claimed. He is said to have indecently assaulted her on eight occasions when she was aged 14 or 15, including in his mother’s car.

The pair later embarked on a sexual relationship when she was 16 and he was 22.

But she then discovered he was engaged to someone else.

Sarah Elliott, KC, defending, asked the alleged victim how she felt when she found out in 2022 that Lockwood had been charged with raping a 14-year-old girl in the 1980s.

Ms Elliott asked: ‘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.’

The Old Bailey heard that the woman had written notes in her school exercise book about Lockwood, saying she disliked ‘the way he treats me’ and ‘he lies’.

She also wrote that her favourite things about Lockwood were his ‘personality’, ‘bum’ and ‘hairy chest’, but she disliked that he ‘never goes anywhere’. She later told police: ‘There had been some grooming there.’

Lockwood started working at the leisure centre as a university student before building a ‘distinguished’ career in local government, later becoming head of the police complaints watchdog for England and Wales, jurors heard.

He was still working part-time there when he is alleged to have raped another 14-year-old girl in the mid-1980s when he was a senior auditor at Humberside County Council.

In total, Lockwood is accused of three rapes and 14 indecent assaults on two girls between 1979 and 1986. When he was questioned by police, Lockwood admitted having sex with his former girlfriend, but maintained their relationship did not begin until she was 16.

He denied raping the other girl, saying he has no memory of meeting her, although he suggested she may have been ‘obsessed’ with him.

Married father-of-two Lockwood said: ‘I know for certain that I never had sexual intercourse with anyone in the leisure centre.

‘I do not recall there being a store cupboard on the ground floor. There may have been, but I would never have jeopardised my career or job by having sexual intercourse with anyone, anywhere at a public place.’

The trial continues.