A woman who claims that she was raped by the former head of the police watchdog said that she knew she “would be opening a can of worms” by reporting the allegations.
Michael Lockwood, 65, is accused of sexually abusing two 14-year-old girls while working as a lifeguard at a leisure centre near Hull in East Yorkshire more than 30 years ago.
The first alleged victim told his trial at the Old Bailey that he raped her in a store cupboard at the centre three times between 1985 and 1986. She has also alleged that he indecently assaulted her repeatedly, including when he gave her a lift home in his Ford Capri.
Following his arrest, Lockwood initially denied knowing her and later suggested that she was “obsessed” with him. He stood down as director-general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in December 2022, as news of the investigation into him was made public. He also denies eight counts of indecent assault on a second girl between 1979 and 1981.
Giving evidence on Tuesday, the second alleged victim, who cannot be identified, said that she came forward after a conversation with someone else. She told jurors: “I was feeling emotionally vulnerable. I knew at some point I would need to deal with this. I knew it would be opening a can of worms.”
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Sarah Elliott KC, for the defence, suggested that the woman was triggered to report Lockwood by seeing him on the news. The woman replied: “No, that’s not correct. I may have described it as ‘triggering’ seeing him but it was not the trigger event.”
Elliott suggested that the alleged victim had a crush on another lifeguard at the centre and may be mistaken in thinking that it was Lockwood with whom she had sex.
Elliott said: “I want to suggest to you the sequence of events may have been this: You see Michael Lockwood on the news because he had a public position and he is in the news a lot and he is a face you recognised because he did work at (the leisure centre) 40 years ago and it’s after that you google and decide he is the person you say you had sex with.”
The woman replied: “No, that’s not how it happened at all.”
Elliott said: “Once you had had your trigger, you undertook quite a lot of research about Michael Lockwood.”
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The woman said: “I was trying to establish it was him. I did not want to make a mistake. I had never heard of the IOPC before the trigger event. Once you have heard of the IOPC, it is in the media quite a lot. People said to me, ‘Are you sure it’s him? Are you sure it’s him?’ … I said, ‘Yes, it’s definitely him’.”
The woman denied a suggestion that she had “bragged” about having had sex with a lifeguard. Elliott said: “Over the next few years you tell a number of people that you had a consensual sexual relationship with a lifeguard.”
The woman replied: “I probably described it as consensual because that’s how I thought of it. It was only when I had children that I started to realise it probably was not my fault. The awareness was growing that it was abuse and it was not a consensual relationship.”
Elliott said: “I suggest if you ever had any sexual activity in a store room, it was not with Michael Lockwood.”
The woman said: “I only ever had sexual activity with Michael Lockwood.”
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She told the jury that she was unaware during that period that Lockwood was seeing someone else, who has since alleged that she was also indecently assaulted by him. The woman said: “I had no idea (she) existed until March this year.”
Elliott asked about comments the woman had made about feeling sick at destroying Lockwood’s life because she could not get “closure” on her own. The barrister said: “Was that you recognising you had wrongly accused Mr Lockwood? If something happened to you all those years ago, I suggest it was not with Michael Lockwood and you had practically no contact with Michael Lockwood when you were at (the leisure centre).”
The witness replied: “That’s not true. He took me to the store room. We had sex.”
Questioned by Jonathan Polnay KC, for the prosecution, the woman elaborated: “I recognised the impact it has had on his life, his job. I take no joy. I could not get closure without reporting and it was something I had to do. What happened back then were his choices, they were not mine.”
Lockwood, of Epsom, Surrey, denies a total of 17 charges, including three counts of rape and 14 counts of indecent assault against the two girls between 1979 and 1986.
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The trial was adjourned until Thursday.
