🔗 Share this article

Police Department

Disgraced Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins passed away after being attacked in the throat in an alleged prison incident, an inquest has heard.

Watkins, forty-eight, succumbed on 11 October after being targeted at HMP Wakefield, where he had been completing a 29-year jail sentence for child sex offences including the sexual assault of a infant.

The hearing, opened earlier at Wakefield Coroner's Court, was postponed pending the conclusion of an associated murder case.

Two men have been accused with murder in connection to Watkins' death while two other men, aged 23 and 39, arrested earlier this week on suspicion of conspiracy to murder were sent back to prison as investigations proceeded.

Coroner Statement

Coroner Oliver Longstaff said Watkins, who was referred to by his full name of Ian David Karslake Watkins during the short proceeding, had been declared deceased at the West Yorkshire jail by an on-call doctor and was formally identified by a prison officer.

Mr Longstaff said emergency services were summoned to the jail "after a report he had been attacked in the neck".

The coroner said a autopsy report gave the cause of death as an wound to the throat.

'Depths of Depravity'

In 2013 at Cardiff Crown Court, Watkins refuted rape but admitted the attempted rape and abuse of a child under 13.

He admitted 13 crimes, including conspiring to rape a child, three counts of abuse involving children, seven involving taking, producing or holding inappropriate images of children and one of having an shocking image involving a sex act on an creature.

Legal authorities had portrayed him as a man influenced by fame, drugs, and power who had committed crimes "exceeding imagination."

Mr Justice Royce said the case had established "unprecedented territory" and "plunged into new levels of depravity".

Watkins was also attacked in prison in 2023. Following that attack, he was taken to hospital with wounds which were not life-threatening.

Rashid Gedel, 25, and Samuel Dodsworth, 43, appeared in court last week accused with his murder, but were not required to enter pleas.

Background of Ian Watkins?

Media Archives

Watkins was formerly one of Wales' most famous artists - the lead singer of the rock band Lostprophets.

The band started in Pontypridd in 1997, and sold millions of albums around the world.

They released five studio albums, one of which achieved number one in the UK.

The group also had some achievement in the US, with their second and third albums attaining the popular charts.

They separated immediately after Watkins was convicted in 2013.

His previous bandmates spoke publicly about their surprise and revulsion.

Bassist Stuart Richardson said in 2014: "Although I was completely finished with him, I wished it was all a error, he was innocent, he had to be.

"The first time, we knew the band was done. You can't return from that."

The other bandmates and American singer Geoff Rickly created a new band, No Devotion, soon after.