Alleged Hull rape victim 'not triggered' to make claim against ex-IOPC chief

A woman has denied being “triggered” to make historic rape claims against the former head of the police watchdog after seeing him on the news.

Michael Lockwood, 65, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of sexually abusing two 14-year-old girls while working as a lifeguard at a leisure centre near Hull more than 30 years ago.

The first alleged victim has claimed Lockwood, the ex-director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), raped her in a store cupboard at the centre three times.

She has also alleged 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 she was “obsessed” with him.

Giving evidence on Tuesday, the woman, who cannot be identified, said she had been triggered by something someone said to her.

“I was feeling emotionally vulnerable. I knew at some point I would need to deal with this," she said. "I knew it would be opening a can of worms.”

Defence barrister Sarah Elliott KC suggested she had "seen this person on the news" and asked if that was the trigger.

“No, that’s not correct," the woman said. "I may have described it as triggering seeing him but it was not the trigger event.”

Ms 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.”

“No, that’s not how it happened at all," said the woman.

Ms Elliott told the court the woman had done a lot of research about Mr Lockwood after seeing him on the news.

The woman, now in her 50s, 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 court heard how another girl who frequented the leisure centre had been “obsessed” with Lockwood and another lifeguard.

The witness agreed the other girl had a “thing” for the defendant and that she was aware the girl made a photo album of him at running events and sports competitions.

Ms Elliott suggested that part of the fun of going to the leisure centre was “looking at boys, like teenage girls like to do”.

The witness was asked about having a crush on another lifeguard at the same leisure centre in the early 1980s.

She had a bracelet from Hull fair with his name on it but she denied describing him as her boyfriend.

The woman said that when she was aged 13 she had a lot of crushes on the likes of Simon Le Bon from the pop band Duran Duran.

She also denied the suggestion she had later “bragged” that she had sex with a lifeguard.

Referring to the defendant, who she had known as Mike, she said: “I found the situation overwhelming. I did not know how to handle it.

“Often when I mentioned things to people I would then regret disclosing. I did not know what was going on.”

“Over the next few years you tell a number of people that you had a consensual sexual relationship with a lifeguard,” said Ms Elliott.

“I probably described it as consensual because that’s how I thought of it," replied the woman.

“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.”

She denied that over the years she had “embellished” her story about a lifeguard.

“I suggest if you ever had any sexual activity in a store room it was not with Michael Lockwood," said Ms Elliott.

“I only ever had sexual activity with Michael Lockwood," said the woman.

She told jurors that she was unaware during the period that Lockwood was seeing someone else, who has since alleged she was indecently assaulted by him too.

“I had no idea (she) existed until March this year," she said.

Lockwood, of Epsom, Surrey, denies a total of 17 charges, including three counts of rape and 14 counts of indecent assault against two girls between 1979 and 1986.

The trial continues.

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