{"id":491501,"date":"2025-10-11T17:15:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T17:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/491501\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T17:15:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T17:15:15","slug":"lostprophets-singer-ian-watkins-dies-in-prison-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/491501\/","title":{"rendered":"Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins dies in prison attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SouthSouth Wales Police<\/p>\n

The disgraced rock star from Pontypridd was serving a 29-year sentence at HMP Wakefield for child sex offences<\/p>\n

Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins has died after being attacked in jail, prison sources have confirmed.<\/p>\n

The disgraced rock star from Pontypridd was serving a 29-year sentence at HMP Wakefield for child sex offences.<\/p>\n

West Yorkshire Police said they were called to the prison on Saturday morning to an assault on a prisoner, who was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n

Watkins was jailed in December 2013<\/a> for a string of child sex offences, including the attempted rape of a baby.<\/p>\n

He was attacked with a knife by another inmate on Saturday morning, PA reported, citing sources.<\/p>\n

Police said detectives were investigating and enquiries ongoing at the scene.<\/p>\n

He was attacked in prison in August 2023<\/a>, but his injuries were not thought life threatening.<\/p>\n

He was sentenced to 29 years in prison with a further six years on licence, and his two co-defendants, the mothers of children he abused, were jailed for 14 and 17 years.<\/p>\n

What did Ian Watkins do?<\/p>\n

Watkins admitted the attempted rape and sexual assault of a child under 13 but pleaded not guilty to rape.<\/p>\n

He also admitted 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.<\/p>\n

Judges rejected an appeal<\/a> by Watkins in 2014 to reduce the length of his jail term.<\/p>\n

During sentencing, Mr Justice Royce said the case broke “new ground” and “plunged into new depths of depravity”.<\/p>\n

“Any decent person… will experience shock, revulsion and incredulity.”<\/p>\n

The judge said Watkins had a “corrupting influence”, and had shown a “complete lack of remorse”.<\/p>\n

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.<\/p>\n

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App<\/a>. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X<\/a> to get the latest alerts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Wales Police The disgraced rock star from Pontypridd was serving a 29-year sentence at HMP Wakefield for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-491501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115356665467226348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}