Jury out in historic sex case of former police watchdog chief

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Louise Thomas

Editor

A jury has retired to consider verdicts in the trial of the former head of the police watchdog who is accused of raping and molesting two 14-year-old girls some 40 years ago.

Michael Lockwood, 65, faces 17 charges – for three rapes and 14 indecent assaults – relating to two girls between 1979 and 1986.

At the time, he was in his 20s and worked part-time at a leisure centre near Hull in East Yorkshire where he allegedly met and sexually abused the girls, the Old Bailey has heard.

The first complainant, 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.

The second complainant alleged Lockwood indecently assaulted her in a male toilet cubicle and storeroom at the leisure centre and in the back of his mother’s car after she turned 15.

Lockwood has admitted having a romantic relationship with her, but claimed it did not begin until later, after she was aged 16.

Lockwood denies having sex with the first complainant.

Lockwood denied taking advantage of anyone or having sex with a 14-year-old girl.

Jurors have heard that after allegations against him first emerged, Lockwood resigned from his job as director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which is the police complaints watchdog for England and Wales.

The defendant, of Epsom in Surrey, denies three counts of rape and six counts of indecent assault relating to the other complainant between October 1985 and March 1986.

Lockwood has pleaded not guilty to eight indecent assaults relating to the woman on dates between August 1979 and August 1981.

At 2.18pm on Thursday, Mr Justice Bennathan sent the jury out to begin deliberating on verdicts.

After two hours’ of deliberations, the senior judge sent jurors home to return at 10am on Friday.