{"id":491845,"date":"2025-10-11T20:24:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T20:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/491845\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T20:24:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T20:24:13","slug":"lostprophets-singer-ian-watkins-killed-in-uk-prison-attack-reports-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/491845\/","title":{"rendered":"Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins killed in UK prison attack, reports say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins<\/a> was killed in a prison attack Saturday morning, Oct. 11, more than a decade after he was convicted for a string of sexual offenses, according to multiple reports, citing police and prison officials.<\/p>\n

West Yorkshire Police said they found the 48-year-old former musician dead at the scene after responding to an assault on a prisoner, according to BBC<\/a> and Rolling Stone<\/a>. An investigation is underway.<\/p>\n

“At 9.39am this morning (Saturday), police were called by staff at HMP Wakefield reporting an assault on a prisoner,” West Yorkshire Police said in a statement<\/a>. “Emergency services attended and the man was pronounced dead at the scene a short time later.” The statement did not name Watkins.<\/p>\n

USA TODAY contacted West Yorkshire Police on Saturday, Oct. 11, but has not received a response.<\/p>\n

Watkins was\u00a0previously attacked<\/a>\u00a0at the prison in August 2023 by three other prisoners in an incident that left him with neck injuries, which required hospital treatment, Rolling Stone reported.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

Former Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins performs live on the V stage on August 20, 2011 in Chelmsford, United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

Why was Ian Watkins in prison?<\/p>\n

Watkins was serving a 29-year prison sentence at HMP Wakefield\u00a0in England that began in December 2013, Reuters<\/a> reported. The month prior, he pleaded guilty to 13 charges, including sexually touching a 1-year-old, making child pornography and encouraging a fan to abuse her child.<\/p>\n

Judge Roger John Royce ruled that Watkins would then spend six more years in prison after he was to be released, adding that the artist’s actions had “plumbed new depths of depravity,” according to the Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Watkins served as the frontman of the Lostprophets rock band, which formed in 1997 and disbanded following his arrest in 2012.<\/p>\n

Reuters contributed to this story.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins killed in prison attack, reports say<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins was killed in a prison attack Saturday morning, Oct. 11, more than a decade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,162117,65167,162116,1144,162115,114929,712,16,15,1764,20653],"class_list":{"0":"post-491845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-hmp-wakefield","13":"tag-ian-watkins","14":"tag-lostprophets","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-prison-officials","17":"tag-prison-sentence","18":"tag-scotland","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-wales","22":"tag-west-yorkshire-police"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491845","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=491845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}