![Ian Watkins LostProphets Singer [ Complete Biography ]](https://twilightvixen.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Pi7_Image_Addaheading25-1.webp)
| Net Worth | $500 thousand. |
| Full Name | Ian David Karslake Watkin |
| Date Of Birth | 30 July 1977 |
| Age | 46 |
| Height | 1.79 m |
| Weight | 176 lb / 80 kg |
| Gender | Male |
| Profession | singer-songwriter, and musician |
| Nationality | British |
On July 30, 1977, Ian David Karslake Watkins, a Welsh singer-songwriter and musician convicted of child sex charges, was born. He wrote the lyrics and provided the main vocals for the rock group Lostprophets.
He was given a 29-year prison term in 2013 for a variety of sexual offenses, including the rape of infants and young children and his sentence was later increased by an additional 10 months for possessing a cell phone while incarcerated.
Shortly after his incarceration, his bandmates disbanded Lostprophets and started the group No Devotion with American singer Geoff Rickly.
Related :- Patrice Bergeron Net Worth
Table of Contents
Early Life
In Merthyr Tydfil, Ian David Karslake Watkins was born on July 30, 1977. He eventually relocated to Pontypridd, where he studied with Mike Lewis, a future bandmate of the Lostprophets, at Hawthorn High School. He graduated with honors with a first-class graphic design degree from the University of Wales, Newport.
Related :- Benny Andersson Net Worth
Career
Lewis and Ian Watkins’ bond was enhanced by their shared love of rock and metal music. As adolescents, they formed Aftermath, a thrash metal band that performed in a shed in Watkins’ garden.
Aftermath never put anything on record. Ian Watkins met future bandmate Lee Gaze while hanging around in the neighborhood’s Ynysangharad Park, which is where Lostprophets will perform at The Full Ponty event 17 years from now.
Related :- Theo Von Net Worth
After splitting from Aftermath, which existed for two years and only made two live performances, Ian Watkins and Gaze made the decision to start a new group called Fleshbind based on their love of American hardcore punk. The band had a brief run of performances, including one backing Feeder in London.
Ian Watkins rejoined Mike Lewis as a drummer in the 1995-formed hardcore group Public Disturbance. During this time, Watkins and Gaze broke away from Fleshbind to form their own band, Lost Prophets.
Watkins served as the band’s main vocalist, and the group had its stage debut in May 1997 with Public Disturbance. In order to focus on the newly called LostProphets (all lower case letters), Watkins departed Public Disturbance in 1998.
Related :- Shin Lim Net Worth
Ian Watkins and Jamie Oliver
Watkins and Jamie Oliver, who was then a member of Lostprophets, appeared on the Hoobastank song “Out of Control” in 2003.
Watkins stated that his mother’s need for a kidney transplant was the reason he wanted to become more involved with Kidney Wales and organize a fundraising concert on New Year’s Eve.
Ian Watkins performed at a concert for the Kidney Wales Foundation on New Year’s Eve 2008.Attack!, the Blackout, and Kids in Glass Houses are all Welsh bands. Attack! performed at the event.
Watkins also toured with the Blackout and appeared in the song “It’s High Tide Baby!” from their 2007 first studio album We Are the Dynamite.
Related :- Cooke Maroney Net Worth
L’Amour La Morgu
“L’Amour La Morgue” is a remixing side project Watkins launched in 2009. He issued seventeen remixes by musicians such as the Killers, Beyoncé, Young Guns, Magic Wands, Tears for Fears, and Bring Me the Horizon.
Along with a free download of a song that was first performed at a fashion show in 2008, he also made a free mixtape available online.
The Fake Sound of Progress (2000), Start Something (2004), Liberation Transmission (2006), The Betrayed (2010), and Weapons (2012) are the five studio albums by Lostprophets.
They performed at events like the Reading and Leeds Festivals in 2004, 2007, 2009, and 2010 as part of their lengthy European and American tours.
Related :- Jason Weaver Net Worth
Criminal Activities
South Wales Police received complaints about Watkins abusing children and behaving inappropriately with them as early as 2008; however, the authorities continually chose not to follow up on any leads connecting Watkins to these charges.
Many band members and road crew members who were on the band’s tour in support of their third studio album Liberation Transmission in or around 2006 remembered seeing Ian Watkins backstage with a number of minor fans.
Ian Watkins’ former bandmates asserted that they were oblivious of his behavior since his drug usage had started to severely disrupt their friendship.
Watkins had asked for a separate dressing room away from the other five band members because that is where a lot of his claimed child abuse occurred.
Watkins had also made the decision to limit his personal interactions with the majority of his bandmates, spending more time at his home in Wales during much of their downtime while the other members of the band lived in Los Angeles.
Related :- How Tall is Joe Rogan
December 2019 interview
In a December 2019 interview, bassist Stuart Richardson remembered how tensions with Ian Watkins increased and eventually escalated to an altercation:
I leave the stage in a fit of rage. Ian is on the bus; board it now. And I say, “Nice one.” And then he insults me. I suddenly lose consciousness and start punching him in the face.
I’m not even half-happy with it. But whether it takes 10 seconds or 10 minutes, I keep punching him in the face. I’m not sure. I’m not proud of this because I’m a huge lad in comparison to him. After I struck him, he gives me this fucking face.
I crushed this fucking Monster Energy can into his head while holding it in my hand. And I’m like, “Fuck,” so I hurl up outside.
He has black eyes and a cut on his face for the next three weeks, and I feel dreadful about the whole situation. And when he skipped a show, I did the same thing.
Related :- Nate Bargatze Net Worth
Joanne Mjadzelics
Watkins’ former girlfriend Joanne Mjadzelics claims that as early as 2010, he displayed numerous explicit photos with children or drug paraphernalia.
Mjadzelics was horrified by the information and complained to South Wales Police on numerous occasions, but little was done at the time.
Six persons, including Mjadzelics, reported Ian Watkins’ behavior to the police between 2008 and 2011. Watkins was also accused of abusing a child by an Australian woman in 2010, but the claims were not followed up on by police.
Ian Watkins informed Mjadzelics that he was abusing a two-year-old child in California while the band was recording in Los Angeles for the band’s fourth studio album, The Betrayed, in 2009.
The child’s parents had also denounced him to Welsh authorities when Mjadzelics got in touch with them, but no further steps were made to look into the case.
Related :- Zach Bryan Net Worth
Arrest & Conviction
Watkins was initially detained in June 2012 on suspicion of a number of drug-related offenses; shortly after, he was given bail.
Following reports from many acquaintances that Ian Watkins was routinely smuggling cocaine and methamphetamine from Los Angeles, Welsh law enforcement had previously taken notice of him On November 4, he was detained once more for drug possession and a different charge of having an offensive picture of a child.
Shortly after being granted bail once more, he entered a not guilty plea to the accusations of possessing sexual material. On November 14, 2012, in Newport, Wales, Watkins played his final gig with Lostprophets.
Related :- Jack Doherty Net Worth
On December 17, 2012
On December 17, 2012, he was taken into custody once more on suspicion of possessing drugs. His home and computer were promptly searched by South Wales Police in connection with their earlier inquiry.
Officers searching his computer came across countless indecent photographs of children. He was accused of conspiring to have sex with a one-year-old girl, possessing and/or disseminating pornographic photos of children, and “extreme animal pornography” on December 19 before Cardiff Magistrates Court.
He and his two female co-accused were both remanded in detention. Ian Watkins would refute the allegations, according to his attorney.
Related :- Shaka Hislop Net Worth
Custody
He was remanded in custody until March 11, 2013, following his video link appearance at Cardiff Crown Court on December 31.
The trial date was set for July 15th, then the matter was continued until May. He appeared in court via video link on June 3 and denied all allegations.
The trial was scheduled to begin on November 25 and was expected to last a month, it was revealed on June 6th. A prior request to shift the court’s location outside of Wales was turned down.
On November 26, Ian Watkins pled guilty to attempted rape and sexual assault of a kid under the age of 13, but not to rape.
Related :- Noah Beck Net Worth
prosecution
The prosecution accepted this. In addition, he admitted guilt to three counts of child sexual assault, six counts of taking, creating, or owning pornographic photos of children, and one count of owning an extreme pornographic image depicting a sex act on an animal.
He sent the mother of one victim a text message that read, “If you belong to me, so does your baby.” His victims included a baby boy.
Ian Watkins was the subject of a South Wales Police investigation known as “Operation Globe,” which required the assistance of GCHQ to decrypt a hidden drive on his laptop that was discovered to have video proof of his misdeeds.
Related :- Sam Raimi Net Worth
encrypted password
The encrypted password for Watkins’ laptop was later cracked by investigators, who noted that it stated “I FUK KIDZ.” Watkins called his sexual offenses “mega lolz” in a taped phone call to a female admirer from HM Prison Parc on November 27, the day after the prosecution accepted his guilty plea.
Cardiff hosted a sentencing hearing on December 18th, 2013. Sally O’Neill QC, Watkins’ lawyer, said that although Watkins had no memory of the attempted rape case, he had “belatedly realized the gravity of what happened” after becoming “obsessed” with recording himself having sex.
Justice John Royce gave Watkins a sentence of 29 years in prison, followed by six years of supervised release after serving two-thirds of his sentence and becoming eligible to petition for parole in 2031.
The mothers of his two co-defendants were given sentences of 14 and 17 years in jail, respectively. The judge declared that the case “plunged into new depths of depravity”.
Related :- Lawrence Taylor Net Worth
“potentially the most dangerous sex offender”
Watkins was referred to as “potentially the most dangerous sex offender” and a “committed, organized paedophile” by a top investigative officer on the case.
In order to start completing his sentence, Watkins was moved from HM Prison Parc, where he had been detained while on remand, to HM Prison Wakefield.
He was sent to HM Prison Long Lartin on January 25, 2014, so he could be nearer to his mother after she underwent a kidney transplant.
On October 9, 2017, Watkins was charged with using a string of letters to allegedly groom a young mother while she was incarcerated. By March 2018, he had returned to Wakefield.
Related :- Tyrus Net Worth
Aftermath
Three detectives from the South Wales force should face disciplinary punishment, according to an Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigative report released in the summer of 2016.
This was because the detectives were found to have ignored earlier complaints of abuse made by Watkins from 2008 onward.
According to a detective who was quoted in a subsequent IPCC report released in August 2017, Watkins had “a number of fans and ex-girlfriends making allegations that when investigated are false” and that from 2008 to 2012, police frequently neglected to take action on reports of his behavior.
Related :- Theo Von Dad
The report’s conclusion was
It is possible that a predatory paedophile offended for a long time as a result of the force’s shortcomings. According to the evidence gathered during this investigation, South Wales Police received numerous complaints about his behavior but in some cases did not conduct even rudimentary investigations, made mistakes and omissions, and missed opportunities to prosecute him earlier than they ultimately did.
Assistant Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan of the South Wales Police stated that his agency “entirely accepts and regrets” the report’s conclusions.
Related :- Eric Persson Net Worth
Possession of mobile phone in prison
Watkins was discovered in March 2018 with a phone. He was charged of using the phone to stay in touch with a girlfriend outside of prison, but he refuted the accusation.
He said two other prisoners forced him to hide the phone for them, and he refused to provide their names out of fear of physical retaliation.
His cell also contained a phone charger. Watkins claimed that he continued to get fan letters from Lost prophets fans, and that the men wanted him to help them use the female authors as a “revenue stream” by exploiting them.
In August 2019, following a five-day trial at Leeds Crown Court, he was found guilty and given an additional 10 months in jail to serve concurrently with his current sentence.
Related :- Heather Dubrow Net Worth
Hostage incident and stabbing
Watkins was held hostage by three other prisoners at HM Prison Wakefield on the morning of August 5, 2023, and was released by guards six hours later.
Investigations are being conducted to determine the incident’s cause. Watkins was stabbed in the neck by several prisoners during the altercation, and as a result of the wounds and blood loss, was sent to the hospital in critical condition.
Related :- Ian Watkins LostProphets Singer
Social Accounts
Conclusion
The story of Ian David Karslake Watkins is one of shocking criminal activities and disturbing revelations. Born on July 30, 1977, Watkins rose to fame as the frontman of the rock group Lostprophets, but his heinous acts overshadowed his success.
His criminal activities, which included child sexual offenses, led to his arrest and conviction in 2013, resulting in a 29-year prison sentence. Despite his musical achievements, Watkins’ legacy is forever tainted by his reprehensible actions.
Related :- Kai Cenat Height
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Who is Ian David Karslake Watkins?
 Ian David Karslake Watkins is a Welsh singer-songwriter and musician known for being the main vocalist of the rock group Lostprophets. He was born on July 30, 1977.
What were Ian Watkins’ criminal activities?
Ian Watkins was convicted of various sexual offenses, including the rape of infants and young children. He was also found guilty of possessing explicit material involving minors.
When was Ian Watkins arrested and convicted?
Ian Watkins was initially arrested in June 2012 on suspicion of drug-related offenses. He was arrested again and convicted in December 2013 for child sexual offenses.
What was Ian Watkins’ prison sentence?
Ian Watkins was sentenced to 29 years for his involvement in child sexual offenses. He was also given an additional 10 months for possessing a cell phone while incarcerated.
What happened to Lostprophets after Watkins’ conviction?
Following Ian Watkins’ conviction, his bandmates disbanded Lostprophets. Some former members started a new group called No Devotion with American singer Geoff Rickly.