Two men have been charged with the murder of Ian Watkins, the convicted child sex offender and former frontman of the band Lostprophets.
As confirmed by West Yorkshire Police, the singer was attacked by a fellow inmate at Wakefield Prison on Saturday (October 11) and died from his injuries. He was 48 years old.
Now, in a new statement, West Yorkshire Police said two men, Rashid Gedel, 25, and Samuel Dodsworth, 43, had both been charged with murder and will appear before Leeds Magistrates’ Court this morning (October 13).
Over the weekend, West Yorkshire Police issued a statement about Watkins’ death, writing: “At 9.39am this morning (Saturday), police were called by staff at HMP Wakefield reporting an assault on a prisoner,” a police statement said. “Emergency services attended and the man was pronounced dead at the scene a short time later. Detectives from the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team are investigating and inquiries remain ongoing at the scene.”
Watkins was serving a 29-year sentence, with a further six years on license. He pleaded guilty to 13 sex offences in 2013, including the attempted rape of a baby, conspiring to rape a child, three counts of sexual assault involving children, seven involving taking, making or possessing indecent images of children and one of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving a sex act on an animal.
In 2023, he was attacked and taken hostage by three other inmates, before being found and freed by officers and taken to hospital. It was later reported that Watkins had been stabbed with a “sharpened toilet brush” over a drug debt.
A 2024 book titled Life Behind Bars In The Monster Mansion by Jonathan Levi and Emma French claimed that Watkins had “spent thousands on protection” while in prison, explaining that rough justice is “particularly likely” to be “meted out” to paedophiles in jail.
In 2017, Watkins was reported to have been grooming a mother from his prison cell. The 21-year-old’s child was subsequently taken into care after social services were alerted of her contact with the disgraced singer.
‘We’re sickened,” said a spokesman from the NSPCC at the time. “It’s utterly bewildering that he could carry on grooming. It shows contempt for children he abused, and raises serious questions about supervision.”
At the time, it was said that prison officials in Wakefield reportedly found “nothing untoward” in their exchanges via letters and emails. A spokesman from Lincolnshire police meanwhile added: “We will always take action to safeguard vulnerable adults and children.”
This is a developing story – more information to follow…
