Paedophile Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins has been murdered behind bars where he was serving 29 years for a string of child sex offences.
The former frontman’s throat was reportedly cut by a fellow inmate after prisoners came out of their cells this morning.
Emergency services rushed to Wakefield Prison in West Yorkshire today, but the sex offender’s life could not be saved.
The 48-year-old had been sentenced to nearly three decades behind bars for a series of child sex offences, which included the attempted rape of a fan’s baby daughter.
The former rock singer is one of the highest-profile prisoners to be killed in a British prison.
Watkins is said to have died from blood loss after being slashed to the jugular, as justice sources say the musician’s attacker has been identified.
A West Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: ‘At 9.39am this morning, police were called by staff at HMP Wakefield reporting an assault on a prisoner.
‘Emergency services attended and the man was pronounced dead at the scene a short time later.
Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins has been murdered in jail where he was serving 29 years for child sex offences
The former frontman was reportedly cut to the throat after prisoners were released from their jail cells this morning
‘Detectives from the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team are investigating and enquiries remain ongoing at the scene.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: ‘We are aware of an incident at HMP Wakefield which took place this morning.
‘We are unable to comment further while the police investigate.’
In 2013, Watkins was sentenced to 29 years behind bars, with a further six on licence for a string of child sex offences, after he pleaded guilty to 13 child sex offenders at Cardiff Crown Court.
Two of his co-defendants known as Mother A and Mother B – the parents of children he assaulted – were also incarcerated for 14 and 17 years respectively.
The depraved singer attempted to rape a fan’s baby girl, while he also encouraged another to abuse her own child in a webcam chat.
During the trial, it was heard how a woman had proposed to him the offer of a ‘summer of child porn’, to which he replied: ‘Hell yes, baby.’
Representing Woman B, Christine Laing QC also told the court that Watkins told her client: ‘You and your daughter now belong to me.’
It is also understood the jailed sex offender was so ‘tech savvy’ his collection of child abuse footage and photos amounted to 27 terabytes of data.
The scale of the collection dwarfed South Wales Police’s own data storage – and was five times bigger than the force which had 2,862 officers and 1,631 support staff at the time.
One terabyte could hold as much as 472 hours of broadcast quality footage or around 150 hours of HD video.
Eventually, experts from the UK government’s intelligence headquarters, the GCHQ were brought in to crack the password on the encrypted files on his computer.
The paedophile vehemently denied the claims lodged against him before switching his plea to guilty at the last second.
In mitigation, his defence argued his use of crack cocaine and crystal meth meant he could not remember his ‘prolific abuse’.
Detective Chief Inspector Peter Doyle said: ‘Clearly he was man who used encryption tools. He was a man who went to some lengths to conceal what he was storing.
‘He went to some considerable lengths to try and hide his wrongdoing.
‘That takes some time to unravel and unfold but unravel it, we did. Which is why we are where we are today.’
Ahead of the sentencing, the detective also said he believed Watkins had more victims.
During their probe dubbed Operation Globe, South Wales Police had met with witnesses from around the world.
Watkins pleaded guilty to 13 sex offences, including the attempted rape of a baby and attempted sexual assault of a child under the age of 13. Watkins was jailed for 29 years with a further six on licence.
During sentencing, Mr Justice Royce told the two women and Watkins: ‘Those who have appeared in these courts over many years, see here, a large number of horrific cases.
‘This case breaks new ground. Any decent person… will experience shock, revulsion and incredulity.’
The judge added Watkins showed a ‘complete lack of remorse’ and had a ‘corrupting influence,’ before adding that the singer posed a significant risk to the wider public, especially women with young children.
The insider described the scene as ‘horrific’, detailing ‘blood everywhere’ while both alarms and sirens rang out
Justice sources said the singer’s attacker has been identified. Pictured: An image of prison cell in HMP Wakefield
The paedophile co-founded the Lostprophets in Pontypridd, Wales in 1997, with whom he released five albums.
The Welsh band announced it would be parting ways a month before Watkins’s sentencing. They said they were not aware of Watkins’ offending.
After Watkins’ heinous crimes emerged, the band’s music was removed from HMV sales and Rhondda Cynon Taf council removed paving stones engraved with the band’s lyrics to be removed.
In 2019, Watkins was handed an extra 10 months on his prison sentence after he was found to have a mobile phone.
Watkins claimed two inmates forced him to hold on to the phone so they could contact women who sent him fan mail in order to use them as a ‘revenue stream’.
In his evidence, the defendant refused to name the men, but said: ‘You would not want to mess with them.’
He argued he could not name them out of fear as he was behind bars with ‘murderers, mass murderers, rapists, paedophiles, serial killers – the worst of the worst’.
Judge Rodney Jameson KC said he did not accept Watkins had the phone, which was in his possession for five days, because he had been threatened.
During the five-day trial at Leeds Crown Court, the jury heard Watkins was strip-searched in the jail in March 2018 and then produced a small phone from his body after he became concerned that he would not be able to see his mother who was visiting from Wales.
In 2014 Watkins was told he could not appeal against the length of his 29-year jail term.
Lawyers for Watkins claimed he should have his jail term cut because his last-minute guilty plea spared a jury from having to watch his home-made child pornography.
However the Court of Appeal, sitting in Cardiff, turned down his application for leave for an appeal, with presiding judge Lord Justice Pitchford saying: ‘These were offences against infant children of such shocking depravity that a very lengthy sentence of imprisonment was demanded.
‘It is not demonstrated the total sentence of 29 years together with the extended licence period was arguably manifestly excessive. Accordingly, the application in his case is refused.’
Among the disturbing videos due to be shown at his trial included his attempted rape of a baby and a webcam chat in which he instructed a crazed fan to abuse her child.
Watkins was given 14- and 15-year consecutive prison terms for engaging in sexual activity with a child and the attempted rape of an 11-month-old baby.
He was also convicted of 11 other offences – with those sentences running alongside his 29-year term.
The paedophile musician was previously hospitalised after being attacked in a separate incident in August 2023. At the time, police said his injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.
During that incident, three other inmates had grabbed him during the assault leaving the musician with injuries to the neck.
The attack ended when a squad of riot officers descended on the cell with stun grenades in a bid to free the sex offender.
Watkins later received life-saving medical treatment at Leeds General Infirmary.
The attack stemmed from a row over visits from Watkins alleged younger ‘girlfriend’ as well as guitar lessons.
In 2017, it was revealed the paedophile was allowed to have three ‘groupies ‘ visit him in jail on a regular basis, one of which he was seen holding hands with and kissing.
His death comes after Joanne Mjadzelics who played a key role in unmasking Watkins, leading to him being jailed for over three decades spoke exclusively to the Daily Mail.
When Joanne first got to meet and then actually hook up with rockstar Ian Watkins, it seemed to be a dream come true.
However meeting Watkins soon turned into a nightmare which she could only finally escape after spending years forcing herself to listen to his twisted fantasies in order to bring him to justice.
Joanne, now 50, told the Daily Mail: ‘It literally felt like it was me against the world.’
In early 2006, she was working as a telephone banking assistant in Yorkshire when a colleague loaned her a CD by a band she thought she might like.
The Lost Prophets had been around for almost a decade at this point so they were hardly unknown but their big breakthrough – which would see them go platinum, fill stadiums and sell 3.5 million albums worldwide – was still ahead of them.
Watkins was a rock superstar before his shameful downfall. In 2010 the band was at the height of its success, with their last two albums going to number one in the UK charts
Joanne Mjadzelics is the ex-girlfriend of Watkins who took the brave decision of pretending to support his sick child sex fantasies in order to expose his vile crimes after police ignored her
The friend’s instincts were right – she liked what she heard enough to think she might want to see them live, only to find all their gigs were sold out.
So she left a message on the band’s website hoping she might somehow get to the tour.
When she received an email reply from Watkins himself – the singer who she already had a big crush on – she could initially hardly believe it was genuine.
She recalled: ‘Ian responded asking me to add him on MSM [then a popular early social media platform] and that’s when we started chatting.’
The messages became increasingly flirtatious, culminating in Watkins asking to meet her on their tour before Christmas in 2006.
Joanne says: ‘We were chatting on and off and then eventually I met him after he put me on the guest list for his Leeds show. I arranged to meet him at my hotel before the show and that is when it all started.’
She slept with him that first night – and that was the starting point for what would become an intense but sporadic affair in which Joanne would soon realise she was just one of many women Watkins had on the go, many like her whom he had cherry picked from their fanbase.
But it was 18 months into their on/off relationship that Watkins – now 47 – began to confide his increasingly dark sexual fantasies and, worse, encourage Joanne to share them.
And their depravity levels soon escalated. He spoke about his fantasy of taking a 14-year-old fan’s virginity.
Then he singled out an 11-year-old girl he said he would like to have sex with. Then he started talking about a four-year-old child he described as ‘super flirty’.
Before he began this descent into the moral abyss, Watkins had groomed smitten Joanne by telling her he wanted to have a baby with her.
Now he even expected her to listen while he described how he wanted to have sex with their imaginary daughter.
Initially she was distressed by his twisted fantasies but wasn’t sure what she could do – but when he began to show her what were clearly illegal graphicly sexual paedophilic images, she decided she had to act.
She recalled: ‘In the beginning there were feelings. I was so in love with that man but then, as time went on, and I found out who he really was, those feelings went away immediately and I knew I had to report him to the police.’
Joanne first contacted the authorities local to his home in Wales, speaking to South Wales Police and both Pontypridd Child Services and Rhondda Children’s Services in December 2008.
South Wales Police arranged for Joanne to be interviewed by two officers at her home in Bingley, West Yorkshire, the following March.
She thought this would lead to Watkins’ immediate arrest and prosecution but instead she was horrified to learn the force had closed the case against him. They did not believe her.
Joanne supplied this collect taken when she was dating the paedophile rock star
Pictured: Ian Watkins holding a baby doll in 2010. He pleaded guilty to 13 sex offences, including the attempted rape of a baby in 2013
After serving in the army, Joanne has a troubled life, with a failed relationship leaving her a single mother with no income.
She had worked for a time as a lapdancer and then later as an escort before trying to leave that seedy world by landing that banking role.
She believes that it was her frankness with those police officers that led them to so quickly discount her account and take Watkins’ side – dismissing her as what she calls ‘just a nut job prostitute’.
After contacting the police led nowhere, Joanne was increasingly concerned that Watkins might harm a real child.
At this point she took the only other course she could think of – she contacted a member of Watkins’ family to warn them about his paedophilia.
Instead of leading to action, this saw her warned off by police, accused of possible harassment.
By now so many people – including, repeatedly, Watkins himself – had told her she was mistakenly conflating what was just sexualised chat with real criminality, that she began to doubt herself.
This definitive turning point came in August 2010 when Watkins was again near her Yorkshire home as Lost Prophets were one of the headline acts at Leeds Festival.
By that point the band were at the height of their success, with their last two albums respectively going to number one and going platinum and Watkins even dated stars like Fearne Cotton.
Joanne agreed to meet him at his hotel – only to find he was almost immediately trying to introduce her to his world of sexualising children again.
Still shaken by the memory, Joanne remembered: ‘He opened his laptop and I can say the girl was about six or seven – I am not going to describe it – and I looked at him and could feel the tears in my eyes
‘And he had this smirk on his face, an evil smirk on his face, as if he was getting off on the fact it was upsetting me.
‘It was at that point I told him he had to get out.
‘I had been starting to think I had been wrong about him. He had been trying to make me feel guilty for reporting him.
‘But I wasn’t wrong.’
In 2012, Joanne had visited Doncaster Police station on three separate occasions, convinced she had material so damning Watkins would be looking at years in prison.
However, despite taking her laptop with her each time, no police officer she spoke to would take her reports on Watkins seriously.
‘They acted as if I was some crazy stalker,’ she recalls.
Undaunted, she tried to report Watkins to a third police force: Bedfordshire, where a fan lived who had a baby Watkins said he planned to abuse.
This time, the police finally paid some attention: they arranged to interview Watkins – but he was soon released on bail.
It was eventually an unrelated drugs tip-off in December 2012 leading to a police raid on the sex offenders home that brought him to justice.
As a matter of routine they seized his laptop and, as soon as they turned it on, the penny finally dropped with police that Watkins was everything Joanne had repeatedly told them – and worse.
Detectives had discovered on his laptop 90 indecent images of children between the ages of two to 14 and 22 other images of bestiality.
But, detectives would finally discover, these images were just the visible manifestation of what it would transpire he had been playing out for real – just as Joanne had repeatedly warned.
A year later Watkins finally admitted 13 sex offences, including the attempted rape of a baby and attempted sexual assault of a child under the age of 13.
His decade and a half on the rockstar pedestal was over, he joined the pantheon of the UK’s very worst sex offenders.
Watkins was jailed for 29 years with a further six on licence.
