Police Department
Disgraced Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins died after being stabbed in the neck 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 crimes including the sexual assault of a infant.
The inquest, opened earlier at Wakefield Coroner's Court, was postponed pending the conclusion of an associated murder case.
Two individuals have been accused with murder in connection to Watkins' death while two other suspects, aged 23 and 39, detained earlier this week on suspicion of conspiracy to murder were sent back to prison as investigations proceeded.
Official Statement
Medical Examiner Oliver Longstaff said Watkins, who was identified by his full name of Ian David Karslake Watkins during the brief hearing, had been pronounced dead at the West Yorkshire jail by an attending doctor and was officially recognized by a prison officer.
Mr Longstaff said emergency services were called to the jail "after a report he had been stabbed in the throat".
The examiner said a post-mortem report gave the cause of death as an incision to the neck.
'Depths of Depravity'
In 2013 at Cardiff Crown Court, Watkins refuted rape but confessed to the sexual assault and sexual assault of a child under 13.
He pleaded guilty to 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 extreme image involving a sex act on an creature.
Prosecutors had described him as a man corrupted by fame, substances, and power who had committed crimes "beyond imagination."
Mr Justice Royce said the case had broken "unprecedented territory" and "plunged into new levels of wickedness".
Watkins was also stabbed in prison in 2023. Following that incident, he was taken to medical facility with injuries which were not fatal.
Rashid Gedel, 25, and Samuel Dodsworth, 43, were presented in court last week charged with his murder, but were not asked to enter pleas.
Who Was Ian Watkins?
Media Archives
Watkins was once one of Wales' most recognisable musicians - the lead singer of the rock band Lostprophets.
The band started in Pontypridd in 1997, and sold millions of albums across the world.
They produced five studio albums, one of which reached 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 promptly after Watkins was convicted in 2013.
His former bandmates spoke openly about their shock and revulsion.
Bassist Stuart Richardson said in 2014: "Although I was completely finished with him, I hoped it was all a error, he was not guilty, he had to be.
"The first time, we knew the band was finished. You can't go back from that."
The other bandmates and American singer Geoff Rickly created a new band, No Devotion, shortly thereafter.
