Surrey man denies raping girls while working as a lifeguard at a leisure centre, court hears

A woman denies that watching the news made her feel compelled to make rape allegations against a former police oversight agency chief.

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

The first alleged victim claimed the former director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) raped her three times in a storeroom at the centre. She also claimed he repeatedly indecently assaulted her, including when he gave her a ride home in his Ford Capri.

After his arrest, Lockwood initially denied knowing her and later claimed she was “obsessed” with him. During her testimony on Tuesday, the alleged victim, whose identity has not been disclosed, said she was triggered by something someone said to her.

She told jurors: “I felt emotionally vulnerable. I knew I would have to deal with this at some point. I knew it would be a bottomless pit.”

Defence counsel Sarah Elliott KC said: “You had seen this person on the news and that was the trigger?” The woman replied: “No, that is not correct. I may have described seeing him as a trigger but it was not the triggering event.”

Ms Elliott said: “I would suggest to you that the sequence of events might have been this: you see Michael Lockwood on the news because he held public office and is often in the news. You recognise his face because he worked (at the leisure centre) 40 years ago. And then you google it and conclude that he is the person you allegedly had sex with.”

The woman replied: “No, that’s not how it happened at all.” Ms Elliott claimed: “After you had your trigger, you did quite a bit of research on Michael Lockwood.”

The woman, now in her 50s, said: “I tried to work out it was him. I didn’t want to make a mistake. Before the triggering event, I had never heard of the IOPC. Once you’ve heard of the IOPC, it’s in the media quite a lot. People asked me, ‘Are you sure it’s him? Are you sure it’s him?’ I said, ‘Yes, it’s definitely him.'”

The court heard that another girl who regularly visited the leisure centre was “obsessed” with Lockwood and another lifeguard. The witness agreed that the other girl had a “soft spot” for the defendant and that she knew the girl had made a photo album of him at running events and sporting competitions.

Ms Elliott said part of the fun of going to the leisure centre was “looking at boys, like teenage girls like to do.” The witness was asked if she had a crush on another lifeguard at the same leisure centre in the early 1980s.

She wore a Hull Fair bracelet with his name on it, but denied calling him her boyfriend. The woman said that at age 13, she often had crushes on people such as Simon Le Bon from the pop band Duran Duran.

She also denied the allegation that she later “bragged” about having sex with a lifeguard. Of the defendant, whom she knew as Mike, she said: “The situation was overwhelming for me. I didn’t know how to handle it.”

“When I told people things, I often regretted revealing them. I didn’t know what was going on.”

Ms Elliott said: “Over the next few years you told a number of people that you had a consensual sexual relationship with a lifeguard.” The witness replied: “I probably described it as consensual because that’s how I thought about it. It wasn’t until I had children that I realised it probably wasn’t my fault. The awareness that it was abuse and it wasn’t a consensual relationship grew.”

She denied that she had “embellished” her story about a lifeguard over the years. Ms Elliott said: “I submit that if you ever had sexual activity in a storage room, it was not with Michael Lockwood.” The witness said: “I only ever had sexual activity with Michael Lockwood.”

She told jurors that during that time she was unaware that Lockwood was dating someone else, who has since claimed she was also indecently assaulted by him. She told jurors: “Until March of this year, I had no idea (she) existed.”

Lockwood, from Epsom, Surrey, denies a total of 17 charges, including three counts of rape and 14 counts of sexual assault against two girls between 1979 and 1986. The trial at the Old Bailey continues.

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