A former police watchdog boss will stand trial in July next year over allegations he raped and sexually abused a teen girl at a sports centre nearly 40 years ago.
Michael Lockwood, 64, faces three charges of rape and six counts of indecent assault over alleged incidents in the Hull area between October 1985 and March 1986.
It is said he kissed and groped the girl in a store room of the leisure centre where he worked as a lifeguard and fitness instructor, and allegedly had sex with her when she was under 16 and he was in his mid-20s.
Lockwood stood down as director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct in December last year after shock revelations that he was facing a criminal investigation into child sex allegations first came to light.
He told Westminster magistrates court last month through his barrister Jacqueline Carey KC that he intends to fight the allegations.
At the Old Bailey on Wednesday, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker said a trial would start on July 1 next year, in a case set to last up to three weeks.
At the first court hearing in June, prosecutor Mark Langan said the charges “stem from the end of 1985 and early 1986, over a five month period.
He said Lockwood “was employed part-time as a lifeguard and fitness instructor” at a Humberside leisure centre.
It is said Lockwood kissed and touched the girl’s breasts while driving her home, and he is accused of “several sexual encounters in the staff store room in the sports centre itself”.
Lockwood, a former London council chief executive, was charged with the offences after a Humberside Police investigation which began last year.
He was appointed as the IOPC’s first director general in 2018 when the body was created to replace the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and resigned before criminal charges were brought earlier this year.
Previously Lockwood headed a government taskforce in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster, to help bereaved families, and has also previously worked as chief executive to Harrow Council. Lockwood, from Epsom in Surrey, was set free on unconditional bail until the trial.
He has not yet formally entered pleas to the charges.
