A man accused of murdering Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins said “this is what paedophiles deserve” before slashing the singer’s throat, a jury has been told.
Watkins, a convicted child sex offender, died after being attacked in his cell at the high-security HMP Wakefield on 11 October 2025.
A trial at Leeds Crown Court has heard that serving prisoner Rico Gedel stabbed Watkins three times with a makeshift knife, which he then passed to fellow inmate Samuel Dodsworth, who threw it in a bin.
Gedel, 25, and Dodsworth, 44, have both denied charges of murder and possessing a knife in prison.
Watkins had “done nothing whatsoever to provoke this attack in the time leading up to it”, prosecutor Tom Storey KC said in his closing speech to jurors on Monday.
“However heinous his crimes were, that did not justify his killing in any way,” he said.
Gedel told the trial he hated being housed with sex offenders at HMP Wakefield and had threatened to hurt “any number of paedophiles” if he was not transferred.
He said he chose Watkins largely due to “proximity”, as he had been put in the cell next to him the night before, after being moved from another wing for assaulting three prisoners there.
Gedel told the court that “part of him” wanted to kill Watkins, but another part did not, adding: “Sometimes what your heart wants is not what your brain wants.”
Mr Storey told jurors that Gedel “made clear to you his hatred of sex offenders” and that they would consider whether this “what ultimately underpinned the decision to attack Ian Watkins in the way he did”.
He said Gedel’s claim that he told Watkins “this is what paedophiles deserve” before slashing his throat was “as clear an indication of his underlying motive as you could hope for”.
Mr Storey said that when asked by a prison officer why he had chosen Watkins, bodyworn camera footage showed him saying he “thought he was the best one”, before asking: “Was there worse?”
The prosecutor told jurors that Watkins had no defensive injuries and there was no sign of a struggle in the cell, meaning he had “in all likelihood been taken completely by surprise by this attack”.
Describing the “persistence” of the attack, as Gedel slashed Watkins’ face and neck three times until he started bleeding, Mr Storey said: “The intention was to cause Watkins at least really serious harm, because what else would someone carrying out such an attack with such a weapon have intended?”
He said Gedel was grinning and laughing after the stabbing, asking prison officers to “let me know when he dies”.
“Was he being sarcastic or was he expressing from the very outset the hope that Ian Watkins would die?,” Mr Storey said.
The court heard Gedel had claimed in his evidence that, as well as disposing of the weapon, Dodsworth had also given it to him, which Dodsworth denied.
Mr Storey said Gedel described Dodsworth as “resourceful” and “someone who could obtain things for you”, although Dodsworth said this did not extend to providing a homemade weapon.
He told the court that Gedel “has every reason to lie about Dodsworth”, who was convicted of raping a woman and “falls into that category of prisoner who Gedel despises”.
Mr Storey told jurors that CCTV of Gedel handing Dodsworth the knife after the attack shows him walking towards Gedel as if he “knew what he was doing” and “was expecting it”.
He said this contradicted Dodsworth’s claim that he was surprised by Gedel and tried to give the knife back to him.
Giving his legal directions to jurors earlier, the judge, Mr Justice Hilliard, said Watkins “had committed very serious offences, yet clearly should not have lost his life in prison while serving his sentence”.
“Any sympathy you might have in those circumstances cannot play any part in your deliberations,” he told the jury.
The judge said that jurors should not decide the case based on “sympathy or disapproval in any direction”, nor should they be “concerned with the consequences of any particular verdict”.
He told them they should carry out a “cool, calm, careful and impartial examination of the evidence in the case”.
Mr Justice Hilliard said they should not “embark on an inquiry” into Gedel’s evidence about his time in prison, which included claims that he hated being housed with sex offenders at HMP Wakefield and had threatened to assault “any number of paedophiles” if he was not transferred.
The judge told jurors they had only heard Gedel’s side of that story, adding: “You have not heard from those who run various prisons to explain how and why they are run with the resources they have and the issues they have to deal with.”
He said there was no dispute that Gedel was guilty of at least manslaughter, and it was agreed that a “deliberate, unlawfully inflicted injury caused Ian Watkins’ death”.
“The prosecution must next prove Rico Gedel either intended to kill Ian Watkins or cause him really serious harm when he did it,” the judge said.
Watkins was jailed for 29 years in December 2013, with a further six years on licence, after admitting a string of sex offences, including the attempted rape of a fan’s baby.
The trial continues.
