- Author, Zac Sherratt and PA Media
- Role, BBC News, South East
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The former head of the police watchdog has been found not guilty of raping and sexually assaulting two 14-year-old girls 40 years ago.
Michael Lockwood, 65, of Epsom, Surrey, was accused of sexually abusing the girls while working part-time at a leisure centre near Hull in his 20s.
A jury at London’s Old Bailey found him not guilty of all 17 charges relating to the women, now aged in their 50s.
Mr Lockwood resigned as director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in December 2022 after the allegations first emerged.
It was alleged that Mr Lockwood repeatedly raped and indecently assaulted a young girl in a storage room at the leisure centre where he worked as a lifeguard in the 1980s.
After the allegations were published, a second woman told police he had indecently assaulted her in the men’s toilets and storage room at the centre.
He was charged with three rapes and six indecent assaults on the first complainant and eight indecent assaults on the second.
Mr Lockwood denied any sexual activity with the first complainant and it was alleged that she must have mistaken him for another lifeguard after seeing him on the news.
He agreed to have a relationship with the second girl, but said nothing sexual happened until she was 16.
“Absolutely shocked”
The first complainant said she naively thought she was in a “normal relationship” when he first kissed her, jurors heard.
It was claimed Mr Lockwood indecently assaulted her as he drove her home in his Ford Capri and repeatedly raped her in the leisure centre’s storeroom.
It was alleged that the second complainant’s relationship with Mr Lockwood overlapped his engagement to his university girlfriend and the alleged offences against the first woman, although the defendant denied this.
It was claimed Mr Lockwood dragged her into the men’s toilets at the centre where he kissed and sexually touched her, then used the storeroom.
Jurors heard it was “common knowledge” among other lifeguards who sang a nursery rhyme that they were “locked in the toilet together”.
Mr Lockwood said he was “absolutely shocked” when confronted with the allegations.
Increased profile
The jury deliberated for nearly 10 hours before finding Mr. Lockwood not guilty.
Superintendent Craig Nicholson, of Humberside Police, said: “I want to reassure you that we take all reports of sexual offences extremely seriously and will always investigate thoroughly.”
Mr Lockwood was the first person to lead the IOPC after it replaced the Police Complaints Commission in 2018.
In recent years, his public profile has increased following the murder of Sarah Everard by a Metropolitan Police officer and the riots that followed the fatal police shooting of Chris Kaba in London.
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