Ian Watkins' former girlfriend reported Lostprophets singer to police 'four years before arrest'

Joanne Mjadzelics is on trial accused of possessing images of child sex abuse

Joanne Mjadzelics arriving at Cardiff Crown Court on 6 January (PA)

The former girlfriend of Ian Watkins has told a court the Lostprophets frontman would have been caught years earlier if police had properly investigated her warnings.

Joanne Mjadzelics, 39, is on trial at Cardiff Crown Court accused of possessing and distributing child sex abuse images but claims she was trying to trap her former lover and bring him to justice as the police “did nothing” when she reported him.

She reported the disgraced singer to police in December 2008 and again in February 2012, the court heard, but he was not arrested until December that year.

Watkins had talked of getting Mjadzelics pregnant so that he could rape their baby and the pair discussed child abuse while having sex, the court heard.

He was sentenced to 35 years in prison in December 2013 for a series of child sex offences including the attempted rape of a baby.

After her arrest in 2013, Mjadzelics told detectives she reported Watkins to police and social services four years earlier because she was worried about the safety of a four-year-old girl close to him after he called the child “super flirty”.

Police involved in the arrest of Ian Watkins are under investigation over whether or not they acted quickly enough. (Getty Images)

But the court was told police failed to carry out searches of his home and computers - and missed his child abuse images and videos.

On Monday, the jury heard excerpts of a 2008 sex tape allegedly labelled “Jo paedo talk Cardiff” where Mjadzelics and Watkins allegedly discussed their desire to abuse children as they had sex.

The defendant sent the singer five pictures from her mobile phone depicting the sexual abuse of young children alongside perverted messages in 2011, the court heard.

She later added: “You get the pixs? I have more.”

The court heard details of what Mjadzelics said to detectives in a series of interviews following her arrest in January 2013 as part of Operation Globe - a worldwide investigation into Watkins' paedophile activities.

A mugshot of Ian Watkins released by South Wales Police following his guilty pleas (PA)

During the interviews, she claimed that Watkins had forced her to sign a gagging order in order to stop her revealing his perverted secrets.

Detectives took Mjadzelics through transcripts of online conversations they recovered from Watkins' computer in which they discussed the kidnap, rape and killing of young girls.

Asked about the online chat, Mjadzelics told detectives: “I don't remember. I don't have any explanation for what's said or what's going through my mind when I said it.”

She told the interviewing officers that she reported the singer to the police in February 2012 and next saw him in the following April.

“Nothing had been done about it, so I knew I needed to do something,” she said, claiming she needed Watkins to “trust her” and “get evidence”.

“The only time I contacted him was to try and trap him and I had to go that far,” she told police.

Mjadzelics, of Thorne Road, Doncaster, denies four charges of possessing indecent images of children, two charges of distributing indecent images of children and one charge of encouraging Watkins to send her an indecent image of a child, which are alleged to have taken place between May and September 2011.

She accepts she was in possession of four indecent images of children and sent one to Watkins as well as encouraging him to send them to her, but claims these actions did not constitute a criminal offence because she had a legitimate reason in trying to bring Watkins to justice.

The trial continues.

Additional reporting by PA