Lostprophets paedophile Ian Watkins ‘stabbed in prison after inmates take him hostage’

Former frontman Watkins, currently serving 29 years in jail for sex offences, is said to have been taken to hospital

Paedophile rock star Ian Watkins has reportedly been stabbed at HMP Wakefield.

The former Lostprophets frontman is said to have been taken to hospital after being stabbed at the prison in West Yorkshire.

A source told the Mirror he had been taken hostage by three other inmates on Saturday morning.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “Police are investigating an incident which took place on Saturday at HMP Wakefield.

“We are unable to comment further while the police investigate.”

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 disgraced singer was arrested following the execution of a drugs warrant at his Pontypridd home on 21 September 2012 when a large number of computers, mobile phones and storage devices were seized.

Analysis of the equipment uncovered Watkins’ depraved behaviour.

In 2017, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) revealed that he could have been caught and brought to justice nearly four years earlier if police had properly investigated reports from a series of informants.

The incident reportedly happened in Wakefield Prison, West Yorkshire (file photo) (PA)

In a damning report, the IPCC details how South Wales Police missed a series of opportunities to put a stop to the Lostprophet singer’s campaign of abuse against children in the years before his arrest. Officers were found to have made “errors and omissions” and in some instances failed to “carry out even rudimentary investigation” into reports of Watkins’s wrongdoing made by his ex-girlfriend Joanne Mjadzelics and other witnesses between 2008 and September 2012.

​IPCC commissioner for Wales, Jan Williams, said the investigation raised “disturbing concerns” about the way the reports, which she said were subject to conscious or unconscious bias, had been handled.

Ms Mjadzelics first reported Watkins to the authorities in December 2008 and was video interviewed in March 2009 when she told officers she had a message on her mobile phone from Watkins about his desire to sexually abuse children.

The report says the phone was not examined “on the basis that her report was malicious”.