Hello Deep Dives platform!
It's becoming more often than not that police officers are constantly being accused for rape and other sexual violence. This is truly awful and isn't good if we want to uphold the tenets of human rights across the world. Good evening!
British prosecutors have authorised sexual offence charges against Michael Lockwood, the former director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
The charges authorised on Friday against Lockwood are six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against a girl under the age of 16, the CPS said.
The rape charges leveled against him were allegedly committed between October 1985 and March 1986. The UK ex-police officer resigned last year December when he discovered that he was going to be charged with the crimes.
“After carefully considering all of the evidence provided to us by Humberside Police, we have authorised charges against Michael Lockwood, 64, for nine offences under the Sexual Offences Act 1956,” said Rosemary Ainslie, head of the Special Crime Division at the CPS.
“Mr Lockwood has been charged with six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against a girl under the age of 16, alleged to have been committed during the 1980s,” she added.
According to report Lockwood is to appear before a magistrate in Hull on June 28 and will be facing six other charges apart from that of 3 rape charges.
According to a report filed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and Channel 5 broadcaster, police officers are being accused of rape and other sexual crimes and the ratio is one a week and in the past 5 years over 500 police officers in the UK have been accused of rape with one 10 that have been prosecuted while the rest of the others are still working for the police.
It's high time those police officers hiding under the coverage of the UK police to brought to face trials and if found guilty, they should be punished adequately.
More news on this case will be reported here once the case begins on June 28.
Let justice be given to those who are sexually abused.
References:
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/16/uk-charges-ex-police-watchdog-chief-with-raping-teenage-girl
- https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/police-watchdog-chief-michael-lockwood-resigns-over-investigation-into-historic-allegation-12761213
- https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65928045
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12202111/Ex-chief-police-watchdog-charged-sex-offences-including-rape-young-girl.html
- https://news.sky.com/story/ex-police-watchdog-chief-michael-lockwood-charged-with-raping-girl-under-16-and-indecent-assault-12903509
- https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22712422/michael-lockwood-iopc-charged-rape-girl/