Ian Watkins is a former singer for the band Lostprophets. His career ended after he was sentenced for multiple sex offences, including the sexual assault of young children and infants, and the possession of “extreme” child and animal pornographic material.
Ian David Karslake Watkins was born on 30 July 1977 in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. He later moved to Pontypridd, where he attended Hawthorn High School with future Lostprophets bandmate Mike Lewis. He gained a first-class honours degree in graphic design from the University of Wales, Newport. Watkins grew up listening to mostly American rock and metal artists, and in 2004 mentioned the band Faith No More as his biggest influence
As teenagers, Lewis’s and Watkins’ mutual enjoyment of rock and metal music strengthened their friendship. In 1991, they formed Aftermath, a thrash metal band that played in a shed in Watkins’s garden. Aftermath never recorded any material. Whilst spending time in the local Ynysangharad Park, where (17 years later) Lostprophets would headline The Full Ponty festival, Watkins was introduced to future bandmate Lee Gaze through a mutual friend. Having abandoned Aftermath, which made two live appearances in its lifespan of two years, Watkins and Gaze decided to form a new band called Fleshbind, based on their American hardcore punk influences. The band played several shows, including one supporting Feeder in London, but the group was short-lived. Watkins reunited with Mike Lewis as a drummer in a hardcore band called Public Disturbance, formed in 1995.
By this time, Watkins and Gaze had left Fleshbind to create their own band, Lost Prophets, who made their live debut in May 1997 alongside Public Disturbance, with Watkins as the lead vocalist. In 1998, Watkins left Public Disturbance to concentrate on the newly named Lostprophets. In a 2002 interview, following the release of Lostprophets’ debut album “The Fake Sound Of Progress”, Watkins cited the band’s concert at the Cardiff Coal Exchange in December 2001 as a crucial moment in their timeline, stating: “It was incredible. It was only a few months before that that we played the Barfly. That was cool, but then to play the Coal Exchange (and we were like, isn’t it a bit big) and then to have it sell out in advance… It’s really nice to play your hometown to a sold-out venue and a crowd that’s really into it, I guess. It was nice, it was really cool since we’ve been playing every venue we can in Cardiff for years. Everybody who’s been around on the scene knows who we are and it was nice to have that kind of recognition.”
In 2003, Watkins was featured on the Hoobastank song “Out of Control” along with Jamie Oliver, who was by then a member of Lostprophets. In 2006, speaking at the Welsh Pop Factory awards ceremony in Cardiff following Lostprophets winning three awards, including “Best Welsh Band”, Watkins stated that “to win best band in the best country in the world is wicked”. On New Year’s Eve 2008, Watkins took part in a concert for Kidney Wales Foundation and stated that his reasons for being involved were as a result of his mother needing a kidney transplant: “Having that direct experience is why I wanted to get more involved with Kidney Wales and organise a fundraising concert on New Year’s Eve.” The concert featured Welsh bands the Blackout, Kids in Glass Houses, and Attack! Attack!.
Watkins was also featured on the Blackout’s song “It’s High Tide Baby!” from their debut studio album We Are the Dynamite (2007), and also accompanied them on tour. In 2009, Watkins started a remixing side project called “L’Amour La Morgue”. He released 17 remixes by artists such as the Killers, Beyoncé, Young Guns, Tears for Fears, and Bring Me the Horizon. He also released a free mixtape, which was available online, along with a free download of a song that was premiered at a fashion show in 2008. Lostprophets released five studio albums: “The Fake Sound of Progress” (2000), “Start Something” (2004), “Liberation Transmission” (2006), “The Betrayed” (2010), and “Weapons” (2012). They toured extensively in Europe and America, playing shows such as the Reading and Leeds Festivals in 2004, 2007, 2009, and 2010. Lostprophets also closed the Download Festival in 2008.
Watkins’ abuse and misconduct with children was reported as early as 2008 to South Wales Police, though the authorities repeatedly failed to act upon any leads linking Watkins to these allegations. Watkins’ former bandmates claimed they were unaware of his conduct as his drug use had begun to cause heavy strain on his relationship with them. Watkins had requested his own private dressing room away from the other five band members, where much of his abuse of children allegedly took place.
Watkins had also chosen to minimize personal contact with most of his bandmates, spending more of his time at his residence in Wales during much of their off-time, while the rest of his bandmates resided in Los Angeles. Bassist Stuart Richardson recalled during a December 2019 interview the tensions escalating into an altercation with Watkins after he failed to report for a show:
“I come off the stage, fucking livid. Go on the bus, Ian’s on the bus. And I’m like ‘nice one’. And he gives me some shit. And I black the fuck out and I’m laying punches into his face. I’m not fucking proud of it. But I’m laying punches into his face for 10 seconds or 10 minutes. I don’t know. And I’m a big boy compared to him, so I’m not proud of this. And then he gives me this fucking look after I hit him. I had this can of Monster Energy in my hand and I smashed this fucking can into his head. And I’m like ‘fuck’, I go outside and puke. And for the next three weeks he’s like black eyes, cut on his face and I’m like feeling fucking horrible about the whole thing. And that’s what I did when he missed a show.”
Joanne Mjadzelics, an ex-girlfriend of Watkins, recalls him displaying multiple graphic images with minors or drug paraphernalia as early as 2010. Appalled by the content, Mjadzelics had made multiple complaints to South Wales Police, though very little action was taken at the time. Mjadzelics was one of six people who had spoken to the police in regards to Watkins’ conduct from 2008 to 2011. In 2010, an Australian woman had also come forward accusing Watkins of assaulting her child, though the allegations were not investigated any further by authorities.
During the recording of the band’s fourth studio album, “The Betrayed”, in 2009, Mjadzelics was made aware by Watkins that he was abusing a two-year-old child in California whilst the band was recording in Los Angeles. Mjadzelics contacted the child’s parents, who had also reported him to Welsh authorities (child sex offences committed by British nationals are crimes of extraterritorial jurisdiction in England and Wales), though again, no further action was taken to investigate the matter.
Watkins was first apprehended in June 2012 in connection with various drug charges, and he was granted bail shortly afterwards. Watkins had already attracted attention from Welsh law enforcement after several friends reported that he was regularly smuggling cocaine and methamphetamine from Los Angeles. He was arrested again on 4 November, for drug possession, and a separate allegation that he possessed an obscene image of a child. He pleaded not guilty to the charges of possessing explicit material, shortly after being granted bail yet again. Watkins performed his final show with Lostprophets on 14 November 2012 in Newport, Wales.
He was arrested for a third time on 17 December 2012 on another drug possession charge. South Wales Police immediately conducted a search of his home and computer in connection to their prior investigation. During the search, officers discovered numerous indecent images of children stored on his computer. On 19 December, he was charged at Cardiff magistrates court with conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a one-year-old girl and possession and/or distribution of indecent images of children and “extreme animal pornography”. He was remanded in custody, as were his two female co-accused. His barrister said Watkins would deny the accusations. On 31 December, he appeared at Cardiff Crown Court via video link from HM Prison Parc in Bridgend, and was remanded in custody until 11 March 2013. The case was adjourned until May, with the trial date set for 15 July. At a hearing on 3 June, he denied all charges via a video link.
On 6 June 2013, it was announced that the trial would start on 25 November and was expected to last a month. A previous application for the court venue to be moved outside Wales was denied. In one case, he swapped messages with a woman in her 20s about her baby boy in which the frontman spoke of his desire to “make him mine” and to “cross the line”. Cardiff Crown Court was also given details of a 17-minute video in which the singer performed a sex act on the baby. The video was filmed the day after the “Weapons” album was released and just hours after Watkins appeared on BBC Radio 1. The singer used Skype to watch one of his co-accused, aged 24, abuse her 10 month old child. In the 45-minute video call, he talked to the mother about how they were going to use the baby for sex. Watkins referred to the woman and her baby as his “slave duo”. Police also found a box of camcorder tapes which showed Watkins in hotel rooms with young fans. One 16-year-old girl from Boston, Massachusetts, contacted Watkins saying she was a fan and was a virgin and went on to meet him wearing a schoolgirl uniform in a New York hotel in October 2006. Watkins was filmed taking part in oral, vaginal and anal sex and describing the girl as “my underage slut”, at the end he’s seen urinating over her face and tells her to drink it. In October 2008, he filmed himself having oral sex with another 16-year-old Lostprophets fan and also forcing her to take cocaine.
He was said to have about 90 indecent photos of children. They included 45 at level 4 and 2 at level 5 (the highest level). The age range of the children is from 2 to 14 years. There were also images and videos of extreme pornography. 22 images were of bestiality including oral and vaginal sex with dogs. On 26 November, Watkins pleaded guilty to attempted rape and sexual assault of a child under 13, but not guilty to rape. This was accepted by the prosecution. He further pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault involving children; six counts of taking, making, or possessing indecent images of children; and one count of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving a sex act on an animal. His victims included a baby boy, and he sent a text message to the mother of one victim that said, “If you belong to me, so does your baby.” The South Wales Police investigation into Watkins, codenamed “Operation Globe”, required the co-operation of GCHQ to decrypt a hidden drive on his laptop, which was found to contain video evidence of his abuses. Investigators later bypassed the encrypted password to Watkins’ laptop, noting that it read “I FUK KIDZ”. On 27 November, the day after his guilty plea had been accepted by the prosecution, Watkins referred to his sex offences as “mega lolz” in a recorded phone call to a female fan made from HM Prison Parc.
A sentencing hearing was held at Cardiff on 18 December 2013. In mitigation, Watkins’s barrister, Sally O’Neill QC, said that Watkins had no recollection of the case involving the attempted rape, but had “belatedly realised the gravity of what happened” after having developed an “obsession” with videoing himself having sex. Mr Justice Royce sentenced Watkins to 29 years in prison, with eligibility to apply for parole in 2031 after serving two-thirds of his prison term, followed by six years of supervised release. His two co-defendants, the mothers of his victims (known as ‘B’ and ‘P’ in court documents), respectively received sentences of 14 and 17 years imprisonment. The judge said the case “plunged into new depths of depravity”. A senior investigating officer on the case described Watkins as a “committed, organised paedophile” and “potentially the most dangerous sex offender” he had ever seen.
Watkins was transferred from HM Prison Parc, where he had been incarcerated while on remand, to HM Prison Wakefield to begin serving his sentence. In order to be closer to his mother after she had a kidney transplant, he was transferred to HM Prison Long Lartin on 25 January 2014. On 9 October 2017, Watkins was accused of grooming a young mother from prison through a series of letters. As of March 2018, he was back at Wakefield. An Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation report published in summer 2016 said that three detectives from the South Wales force should face disciplinary action after they failed to act on earlier allegations of abuse by Watkins from 2008 onward.
A further IPCC report, published in August 2017, found that police had failed a number of times from 2008 to 2012 to act on reports of Watkins’ behaviour, quoting a detective who said that taking action against Watkins would draw “huge publicity” and that “due to his fame” Watkins had “a number of fans and ex-girlfriends making allegations that when investigated are false”. The report concluded:
“The consequence of the force’s failings was arguably that a predatory paedophile offended over an extended period of time. The evidence obtained in this investigation suggests that South Wales Police were faced with a litany of reports about his behaviour, yet in some instances did not carry out even rudimentary investigation, made errors and omissions and missed opportunities to bring him to justice earlier than he ultimately was.”
South Wales Police Assistant Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan said his force “entirely accepts and regrets” the findings of the report.
In March 2018, Watkins was found with a mobile phone. He was accused of using the phone to maintain contact with a girlfriend outside prison, but denied the charge, claiming it did not belong to him but to two inmates who forced him to hide it for them; he refused to give their names, citing fear of violent retribution. A charger for the phone was also found in his cell.
Watkins claimed he still received fan mail from Lostprophets fans and that the men wanted him to help them take advantage of the women writing in as a “revenue stream”. After a five-day trial at Leeds Crown Court in August 2019, he was convicted and sentenced to a further ten months in prison, to run consecutively with his existing sentence. Watkins reportedly paid a Liverpool-based gang member £1000 for access to the mobile device; upon being caught with the phone in custody, this amount increased to £5000.
On the morning of 5 August 2023, Watkins was taken hostage by three other inmates at HM Prison Wakefield and stabbed, and was freed by prison officers six hours later. The hostage situation is said to have ended when specially-trained riot officers arrived, throwing stun grenades into the cell, according to sources, Watkins was knifed in the neck as part of the standoff. One source stated: “He was screaming and was obviously terrified and in fear of his life. They put the whole wing on lockdown and then sent in riot teams. Other prisoners heard three loud flash bangs which was when the officers got into the cell and threw grenades to stun the attackers and take them by surprise. It seems like the prison officers might have saved his life.” Police later confirmed his injuries were not life-threatening. It was later claimed that the motive for the attack was an unsettled £900 drugs debt with another prisoner whilst in custody, with the makeshift weapon being a sharpened toilet brush. Watkins is reported to have “spent his time buying both protection and friendships” from other inmates after the attack, through bank transfers co-ordinated by his and the inmates’ families and associates.
When Watkins was charged the other band members posted a message on their website stating that they were “learning about the details of the investigation along with you” and concluding: “It is a difficult time for us and our families, and we want to thank our fans for their support as we seek answers.” They subsequently cancelled all tour dates. On 1 October 2013, Lostprophets announced that they were disbanding “after nearly a year of coming to terms with our heartache”. The post was signed by all members of the band except Watkins. On 30 November, the members released a lengthy statement in response to Watkins pleading guilty to attempted rape and sexual assault of a child under 13, stating that they were “heartbroken, angry, and disgusted”. They stated that they had been unaware of his crimes, and that though working with him had become “a constant, miserable challenge”, they had “never imagined him capable of behaviour of the type he has now admitted”. They urged any other victims to contact the authorities. Immediately after Watkins was sentenced, the BBC banned the entire Lostprophets back catalogue from being played on their stations.
In November 2016, it was reported that Watkins’s Twitter account had become active again, new clips of music had surfaced via two SoundCloud accounts (“L’Amour La Morgue” and “Megalelz”), which were reportedly attributed to him, and that Lostprophets’ website had been changed to a single page that described them as “The Straight Edge British Metal Band”. The site domain has since become inactive, as of 2023 redirecting to an unrelated dead URL. No further activity has since been spotted from Watkins’s accounts.
People were outraged when they learned that Watkins would keep his royalties whilst behind bars, a continued stream of cash for past work will ensure he remains a wealthy man. His notoriety and renewed publicity at the time of his arrest even cause a cash generation spike as music sales and internet searches rise. As his artistic activities continue to be broadcast around the world, however, royalty payments collected by the Performing Rights Society (PRS) and others will keep flowing in. Music lawyer Craig Brookes explained that as the band’s lyricist Watkins will be in line for a big cut of any fees generated. “The biggest income stream will almost certainly be publishing which, even if radio play has stopped, will still be pretty big, this is because PRS and their equivalents in different countries allocate money on a spot-check basis. So you’re going to get money for plays in gyms and hairdressers and on juke boxes and all that stuff. They will say, ’This is how much music is in the market place so it is likely you are due this amount.’ He will also get a publishing cut for any play Lostprophets have anywhere.”
The child sex abuser and one-time rock star still receives visits from a string of women in prison, where he has been seen holding hands and laughing with them. The visitors, all seemingly under the age of 25, sit in the corridor and hold hands with the convicted paedophile, the witness claimed. The school worker, a mother-of-two from Berkshire, added that Watkins has put on weight, grown a moustache and is seen as the most hated man in the prison.
She added: “He has probably had three different ladies visit him at different times, regularly. They kissed at the start and then at the end as well. I would say they seemed like a couple, but I know that not to be the case because other women visit him. It was a two-hour visit. They were there for the whole time. He has put on an awful lot of weight. He has got a moustache. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with ‘Zoo York’ on. He didn’t seem to have a care in the world. It was quite bizarre.” But she added: “I do know that he is very hated in there – absolutely hated. And I gather he is trying to be moved. I have heard that from other visitors.They tend to keep him away from other people. People refuse to sit near him. I have been sat next to him before and I have asked to move because I won’t sit near him. He makes people feel very uncomfortable –he is vile.”
“It was mega lolz. I do not know what everybody is getting so freaked out about.” – Ian Watkins
If you want to watch a documentary on Ian Watkins then just check out the video below:
On a side note, if you’d like to read the judge’s sentencing remarks then you can read them HERE, though I must warn you the content is EXTREMELY graphic and VERY DISTURBING to read.
Raz's Midnight Macabre 