Two men charged and named over murder of Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins in prison attack
Two men have been charged with murder following the death of disgraced Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins in a prison attack.
Watkins, aged 48, died after being assaulted at HMP Wakefield on Saturday morning on Saturday, October 11.
He was serving a 29-year prison sentence for offences including the abuse of a Doncaster baby.
Rashid Gedel, 25and Samuel Dodsworth, 43, both of HMP Wakefield, have both been charged with murder.
They are due to appear at Leeds Magistrates’ Court this morning.
HMP Wakefield went into lockdown in the immediate aftermath of the incident, it is understood.
Paedophile rock star Watkins was serving a 29-year sentence for child sex offences at the time of the fatal attack.
He was jailed in December 2013 after admitting a string of crimes - 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 in Wales on September 21, 2012, when a large number of computers, mobile phones and storage devices were seized.
Analysis of the equipment uncovered Watkins' depraved behaviour.
Watkins and the Doncaster baby's mother, named only as Woman A, abused the child together.
Woman A was sentenced to 14 years' custody over the abuse.
Another of Watkins' accomplices, Woman B, the mother of another child the twisted paedophile abused, was jailed for 17 years.
In 2017, a report from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) concluded that South Yorkshire Police officers in Doncaster failed to take seriously complaints made by Watkins' former girlfriend, Joanne Mjadzelics, who lived in Doncaster at the time.
The report concluded that the force’s failings “put a child at risk of further abuse of further abuse for several months”.
Ms Mjadzelics made repeated allegations to South Yorkshire Police between March and May 2012, but officers failed to act on each occasion. This followed similar treatment by South Wales Police, to which she made repeated allegations between 2008 and 2009.
And in 2019 he had an additional 10 months added to his prison sentences after he was found guilty of possessing a mobile phone in prison.
Watkins claimed two inmates forced him to hold on to the phone so they could contact women who sent him fan mail in order to use them as a "revenue stream".
Judge Rodney Jameson KC said he did not accept Watkins had the phone, which was in his possession for five days, because he had been threatened.