After years spent in the company of some of Britain’s most dangerous offenders, Ian Watkins knew only too well the risks he faced every second of every day in prison.
‘It’s not like one-on-one, let’s have a fight,’ Watkins observed in 2019 of what happens if you fall out with someone at HMP Wakefield, a Category-A prison whose roster of inmates is such that it’s known as Monster Mansion.
‘The chances are, without my knowledge, someone would sneak up behind me and cut my throat… stuff like that. You don’t see it coming.’
Fast forward to last Saturday morning, and shortly after 9am the former lead singer of the Welsh rock band Lostprophets emerged from his cell at the West Yorkshire jail.
Seconds later he lay dying in a pool of blood in a scene so gruesome that even hardened prison officers were shocked to their core.
From a rock star playing in packed-out stadiums to a convicted paedophile breathing his last on the floor of a high security institution.
And yet those who knew 48-year-old Watkins say the end, when it came, was not unexpected.
‘This is a big shock, but I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner,’ Joanne Mjadzelics, his ex-girlfriend, who helped to expose his vile crimes, told the Daily Mail. ‘I was always waiting for this phone call.’
Convicted paedophile Ian Watkins who was killed last week at HMP Wakefield
Watkins’s world came crashing down in 2012 when a search for drugs at his home in Pontypridd, South Wales, led to his computers, mobile phones and storage devices being seized by police. Analysis of the equipment uncovered evidence of horrific offending on a vast scale.
The following year he was convicted of 13 serious child-sex offences, including attempting to rape a baby.
Handed a 29-year jail term, the sentencing judge said the case had broken ‘new ground’ and ‘plunged into new depths of depravity’.
Two of his co-defendants – the mothers of children who were assaulted – were also jailed for 17 and 14 years.
Like all sex offenders – or nonces as they are known in prison – from the start, Watkins’s fellow prisoners viewed him as the lowest of the low. The fact that his offences included young children and even babies put him further beyond the pale.
But beyond that Watkins stood out because of his fame and wealth – and the twisted spell he continued to cast over certain women, even from behind bars.
Because while his money might have allowed him to pay for ‘protection’ from other prisoners, at the same time it left him vulnerable to exploitation, be it from those selling drugs or those seeing him as an easy source of cash.
As for his female fan club, who despite his heinous catalogue of crimes continued to send him hundreds of letters and visit him behind bars (more of which later), that caused jealousy among inmates while also being seen as a ‘resource’ to exploit.
Joanne Mjadzelics, Watkins’s ex-girlfriend, who helped to expose his vile crimes
‘Watkins was effectively a dead man walking from the moment he arrived in Wakefield,’ an ex-prisoner told the Daily Mail last night.
‘There is an unwritten rule that you don’t ask people what crime they did, but everyone knew that Watkins attempted to rape a baby. He had been attacked before and was abused every day. He was a loner, self-centred and remorseless. He had no real friends and spent a lot of time on his own in his room.’
Of all Britain’s jails, HMP Wakefield is among the toughest to serve time in. ‘Wakefield is a run-down jail, short of staff, who are suffering from low morale,’ said a prison officer. ‘No one turns up to work with a smile on their face. You are looking after some of the most horrible people in the country.
‘There are so many sex offenders in Wakefield, along with some of the most violent people in the country. It’s a very dangerous mix.
‘With sex offenders, you could have people jailed for date rape all the way through to prolific child abusers, who are beyond any form of rehabilitation, mixing with violent criminals, murderers and gangsters.’
Set against the drab backdrop of buildings that date back to the Victorian era, its reputation is built on its roll call of inmates past and present.
Of its 630 prisoners, two thirds have been convicted of sexual offences, with many locked up for life.
Those serving time include child killers Roy Whiting and Mark Bridger, as well as Jeremy Bamber, who murdered five members of his family at White House Farm, Essex, in 1985. Harold Shipman served time there, as did Robert Maudsley, Britain’s longest-serving prisoner.
Watkins performing in 2012 in Brisbane, Australia
Known as Hannibal the Cannibal after killing a fellow prisoner and leaving the body with a spoon sticking out of its skull, while at Wakefield he murdered two more inmates.
Having killed them, he handed a guard his bloodied, home-made knife, saying: ‘There’ll be two short on the roll call.’
Until his recent transfer, Maudsley was deemed such a security risk that he was held in an underground glass and Perspex cell at Wakefield, which some believe was indeed the inspiration for Hannibal Lecter’s in The Silence Of The Lambs.
The jail is also home to Mick Philpott, who killed six of his 17 children in a house blaze – and was recently left ‘battered and bruised’ after a beating by a fellow inmate.
Indeed, assaults at the jail have become increasingly common. Growing tensions within its walls were highlighted by an official inspection that found violence ‘had increased markedly’, with serious assaults up by almost 75 per cent.
‘Many prisoners told us they felt unsafe, particularly older men convicted of sexual offences, who increasingly shared the prison with a growing cohort of younger prisoners,’ reads a report published just a fortnight ago by the Chief Inspector of Prisons.
In a survey of inmates, 55 per cent said it was easy to get drugs, compared with just 28 per cent at the time of the previous inspection.
The infrastructure was found to be in a ‘very poor condition’ with ‘shabby’ showers and broken boilers and washing machines. As for emergency call bells in the cells, only a quarter of those quizzed said staff responded within five minutes of them being rung.
Watkins, the frontman of band Lostprophets. He was sentenced in 2013 to 29 years in prison
The food fared little better. The prison kitchen had been without a gas supply for more than five weeks, while only one in five inmates described the meals as ‘good’.
Initially held on remand at HMP Parc in Bridgend, Watkins’s first taste of Wakefield came in 2014.
But soon afterwards he was moved to HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire to facilitate visits from his mother after she had a kidney transplant.
By 2017 he was back in West Yorkshire, and the following year fell foul of prison authorities when he was caught with a mobile phone in his cell, and was accused of using it to contact a girlfriend.
Incredibly, despite his incarceration, Watkins’s womanising ways had continued.
Witnesses at Wakefield reported regular visits from ‘groupies’, including three ‘goth’ girls in their mid-twenties. He was spotted holding hands with one and kissing another.
What his appeal was is unclear. Insiders say that after being jailed, his weight had yo-yoed, while hair dye from the prison shop was needed to keep his thinning hair black.
Despite this, in his cell he hoarded 600 pages of letters from different women – some including sexual fantasies.
As another insider told the Daily Mail: ‘He got a lot of correspondence, mainly from women, with some asking him to marry them. It was beyond comprehension, given his horrendous crimes.’ Charged with having a mobile phone in prison, the subsequent court case in 2019 revealed chilling details of his time in jail.
Leeds Crown Court heard that Watkins had used the phone to contact Gabriella Persson, who first met him aged 19. They had been in a relationship, but she stopped contacting him in 2012.
Despite being aware of his crimes, she began communicating with him again in 2016 through letters, phone calls and legitimate prison emails.
In March 2018, she told the jury she received a text from a number she did not know which just said: ‘Hi Gabriella-ella,-ella-eh-eh-eh”.
She confirmed that this was a reference to the Rihanna hit Umbrella and said that was something Watkins had done before.
Ms Persson said that when she asked who was messaging her, she got the reply: ‘It’s the devil on your shoulder.’ She said the next message said: ‘I’m trusting you massively with this.’ She told the jury: ‘At that point I realised it could be him.’
Ms Persson said she then spoke to Watkins using the phone number to make sure it was him. She subsequently reported him to the prison authorities.
A search of Watkins’s cell failed to find the device, only for him to hand over a 3in GT-Star phone which he had hidden in his anus. In total, the numbers of seven women linked to him were found on the phone. Watkins claimed he had been acting under duress and that two other prisoners had made him look after the mobile.
He said they wanted him to ‘hook them up’ with his female admirers to use them as a ‘revenue stream’.
He said he put some numbers in the phone for the two men, selecting people he thought would not co-operate or who were abroad and out of harm’s way.
Watkins refused to name the inmates saying they were ‘murderers and handy’, adding: ‘You would not want to mess with them. I like my head on my body.’
Former singer Watkins, who said he found prison life ‘challenging’ and was on medication for acute anxiety and depression, was convicted of possessing a mobile phone in prison and was sentenced to a further ten months.
There was more drama in 2023 when he was viciously attacked by three other prisoners.
It was reported that they barricaded themselves into a cell on B-wing with him, inflicting stab wounds that required life-saving hospital treatment.
Watkins was saved by a specially trained squad of riot officers who hurled stun grenades into the cell to free him. ‘He was screaming and was obviously terrified and in fear of his life,’ said a source.
‘It seems the prison officers might have saved his life.’ In the book Inside Wakefield Prison: Life Behind Bars In The Monster Mansion, published last year, it was claimed the stabbing had been due to a drugs debt. Before his arrest, Watkins had been a heavy user of highly addictive crystal meth.
‘He has access to money and spends his time buying his friendship,’ the source told authors Jonathan Levi and Dr Emma French.
‘Money exchanges are easily done in prison. The person you’re paying, you simply take their friends’ or families’ phone number on the outside, give that number over the phone to your family. They call the person outside and take their bank details and pay the money into their account.
‘He buys his protection and his recent stabbing was due to a drugs debt…[It] was a reminder that he needs to pay. He took an amount of spice off a prisoner with a prison value of £150.
‘Because it was Watkins he was told he owed £900. He was high and refused to pay, therefore he was stabbed in the side using a sharpened toilet brush.’
Following his death on Saturday, police arrested two men. While an investigation into the circumstances of Watkins’s death will also be held by prison authorities, few if any of his fellow inmates will mourn his passing.
As the partner of one serving prisoner told the Daily Mail last night: ‘He said that there was cheering when word spread that Watkins had been killed.
‘All of the prisoners were locked in their cells, but word spread quickly. He was hated because his crimes were so sick.’
