Convicted paedophile and former Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins has been killed inside a Category A prison, 12 years after he was first incarcerated.
The disgraced rock singer was jailed for 29 years with an additional six years on licence for a range of child sex offences, which included the attempted rape of a fan’s baby.
His conviction shocked the public and the music industry. However, it later emerged that the 48-year-old had been reported to the police and local authorities on numerous occasions, but was allowed to roam free due to failures in the investigation.
On Saturday, he was fatally stabbed inside Category A HMP Wakefield with a knife, with two men arrested on suspicion of murder, making him one of the most high-profile prisoners to be killed behind bars.
Speaking after learning of his death, his former girlfriend said she was “relieved” to hear the news, over a decade after she helped put him behind bars.
What were the missed chances to stop Watkins?
Prior to his arrest, Wakins was best known as lead singer of alternative rock band Lostprophets, who made their debut in 1997, selling millions of albums between 2000 and 2010.
Watkins’ ex-girlfriend, Joanne Mjadzelics, first reported him to the authorities in December 2008 and was interviewed in March 2009. She told officers she had a message on her mobile phone from Watkins about his desire to sexually abuse children.
However, it later emerged that the phone was not examined “on the basis that her report was malicious”.
It was later discovered that between 2008 and 2012, South Wales Police failed to adequately act on eight reports and three intelligence logs from six people about the singer's intentions.
Missed opportunities included police failing to visit an alleged victim and her parents following Ms Mjadzelics’s complaint in 2008.
Crimestoppers reports from 2010, and reports from two witnesses in that year and in 2012, “do not appear to have been progressed”, despite corroborating Ms Mjadzelics’s account.
No actions was taken on Ms Mjadzelics’s email complaint to the ACPO inbox in 2011 that her reports had not been properly investigated.
Between March and May 2012, Ms Mjadzelics reported him for child sex crimes to South Yorkshire Police on five occasions.
On three occasions, she took a laptop to a police station in Doncaster and said it contained an indecent image of a child. An IPCC report found it had not been viewed by specialist child protection investigators, and during another visit, she was told by officers that the alleged victim was an adult female.
The laptop was subsequently destroyed prior to Watkins’ arrest.
The report also found that the request to South Yorkshire from South Wales Police for assistance with Ms Mjadzelics’ allegations was handed to a safer neighbourhood team with no specific training, rather than child sex abuse investigators.
The IPCC also investigated Bedfordshire Police, with two detectives accused of misconduct after failing to record decision-making and pursue all lines of inquiry.
The force had received a complaint from Ms Mjadzelics in October 2012 that a mother was allowing Watkins to abuse her 18-month-old child.
Electronic equipment belonging to the mother, known as Miss A, was not seized and all lines of inquiry were not pursued.
While the police watchdog were satisfied that Bedfordshire Police responded quickly to the allegation, they found that the two detectives should have done more.
Ms Mjadzelics was cleared in 2015 of child sex abuse image offences. She claimed she had encouraged the singer to send the images in order to expose his criminality.
She said the IPCC report finally vindicated her and “accepted that from the outset I was telling the truth and trying to bring a serious criminal sexual predator to justice”.
South Wales Police Assistant Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan said at the time: “[The] report highlights a number of failings in which information about Watkins was investigated between 2008 and 2012 which the force entirely accepts and regrets.
“South Wales Police failed to listen and properly investigate information about Watkins' offending behaviour, for this we are truly sorry.”
When was he arrested?
It was not until September 2012 that Watkins was caught and his crimes uncovered, after police executed a drugs warrant at his home in Pontypridd, Wales.
A large number of computers, mobile phones and storage devices were seized, with analysis of the equipment uncovering his depraved behaviour.
He was jailed for 29 years in December 2013 with a further six years on licence, after admitting a string of sex offences.
Among the offences he pleaded guilty to was the attempted rape of an 11-month-old child and sickening sex abuse video filmed in a London hotel room.
While awaiting sentencing, he was recorded by prison officials saying the whole thing was “megalolz” during a telephone call to a friend.
Described as a “committed and determined” paedophile, the court heard that he had used his power over fawning young fans to exploit them and persuaded two women to help satisfy what the judge described as his “insatiable lust”.
Mr Justice Royce said: “I am satisfied that you are a deeply corrupting influence, you are highly manipulative, you are a sexual predator, you are dangerous.”
