The former police chief raped and abused two 14-year-old girls in the 1980s, the jury said

A court has heard that the former head of the police supervisory authority raped and indecently abused two 14-year-old girls almost 40 years ago while working as a lifeguard at a leisure center.

65-year-old Michael Lockwood is accused of three rapes and 14 sexual assaults that he is said to have committed between 1979 and 1986.

It is alleged that when he was in his twenties he repeatedly raped one of the girls in a storage room at a leisure centre near Hull in East Yorkshire.

He allegedly dragged another girl into a men’s restroom in the center, where he kissed and sexually touched her.

Jurors heard that it was “common knowledge” among fellow lifeguards that they sang about being “locked in the toilet together.”

Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay KC told the Old Bailey that Lockwood had worked at the leisure centre whilst studying at Hull University and later after he got a job as chief auditor at Humberside County Council.

He had a “distinguished” career in local government before becoming director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), the watchdog for complaints about the police in England and Wales, the court was told.

The first woman to come forward was a “naive and inexperienced” 14-year-old schoolgirl when she met Lockwood at the leisure center in the 1980s, jurors heard.

Lockwood gave her a ride home in his Ford Capri, which she found “incredibly cool,” the court was told.

After Lockwood kissed the girl for the first time on a walk after dark, she assumed they were in a “real relationship,” the prosecutor said.

It was alleged that he kissed her again and touched her breasts as he rounded the corner of her house in his Capri.

Jurors were told that the defendant took matters further by taking her to a chemical storage area at the recreation center, where he kissed and touched her and forced her to perform sexual acts.

The jury was told that he later indecently assaulted and raped her in the storage room.

The plaintiff, now in her 50s, said it “just happened and I didn’t fight back,” Mr Polnay said.

He told jurors: “She was a child then. She trusted Mr Lockwood. She was afraid that if anyone found out what had happened she would get into trouble and be banned from the leisure centre – a child’s thoughts about what had been done to her.

“The prosecution says what happened was far from consent. (She) did not consent to sex with the defendant. She submitted to his control, not consent.

Lockwood is accused of raping the child twice more, Polnay said.

The woman went to police after events in her life caused her to reflect on events from her past in 2020, jurors heard.

After his arrest, Lockwood initially denied knowing her, but later suggested that she was “obsessed” with him.

He insisted the allegations were untrue, saying: “I know for a fact that I never had sexual intercourse with anyone at the leisure centre.”

“I don’t remember there being a pantry downstairs. Maybe there was, but I would never have risked my career or my job by having sex with anyone in a public place.”

A second woman, who was also 14 when she met Lockwood, came forward after reading reports of the sexual allegations in a local newspaper.

The court was informed that she had met him at the leisure centre years before the first plaintiff.

They started talking, and one day he pulled her into a men’s room and kissed her, it is said.

He then allegedly sexually touched the girl again in the same place.

When the girl was 15, Lockwood allegedly engaged in sexual acts with her in the back seat of his mother’s car.

Lockwood, of Epsom, Surrey, denies three counts of rape and six counts of sexual assault in relation to the first plaintiff between October 1985 and March 1986.

He also pleaded not guilty to eight counts of indecent assault against the second plaintiff between August 1979 and August 1981.

The process continues.

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