Trial date set for former IOPC chief accused of raping teenager in East Yorkshire

The former head of the police watchdog will face a trial next summer over the alleged rape of a teenage girl in the 1980s.

Michael Lockwood, who served as the boss of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), is accused of nine sexual offences dating back to when he worked as a part-time lifeguard at a sports centre in East Yorkshire.

He faces six counts of indecent assault and three of rape, all relating to a 14-year-old girl.

The offences are alleged to have happened between October 1985 and March 1986, when the defendant was aged 25 and 26.

Now aged 64, Lockwood appeared at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, 26 July for a preliminary hearing.

Mr Justice Jeremy Baker rejected a prosecution application to transfer the case to the North East circuit where the original offences are alleged to have taken place.

The judge set a trial of up to three weeks at the Old Bailey starting on 1 July, 2024.

Mr Lockwood, who previously indicated not guilty pleas, was granted continued unconditional bail.

He stepped down as director-general of the IOPC last December after it emerged he was the subject of a Humberside police probe into historical allegations of sexual abuse.

The defendant, of Epsom in Surrey, was the first director-general appointed to lead the IOPC when it replaced the Independent Police Complaints Commission in 2018.

He was previously chief executive of the London Borough of Harrow in north-west London.

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