Ian Watkins, ex-Lostprophets singer and convicted pedophile, killed at HMP Wakefield after surviving an earlier prison stabbing

Ian Watkins, the former frontman of the Welsh rock band Lostprophets who confessed to a string of sexual offenses against children, was attacked at one of Britain’s most notorious prisons in August 2023 — and was ultimately murdered there two years later.

In the 2023 incident, Watkins, then 46, was found in his cell at His Majesty’s Prison Wakefield with knife wounds after being taken hostage by fellow inmates. Prison staff intervened and took him to a hospital.

“There are fears he could die. If he survives, he’ll have been very lucky,” a source told the Mirror at the time.

According to that reporting, on a Saturday morning Watkins was held captive by three prisoners, physically attacked, and stabbed multiple times over a period of about six hours before guards freed him. He survived the assault, suffering injuries that were ultimately described as non-life-threatening.

Watkins formed Lostprophets in 1997; the band disbanded in 2013 after his arrest. He was sentenced that year to 29 years in prison, with a further six years on extended licence, after admitting 13 offenses against children — among them the attempted rape of a baby, sexual assault of a child, and the making and possession of indecent images of children.

The case that ended his career began in 2012, when he was arrested in connection with drug offenses. After a search of his home and computers, police uncovered evidence of his abuse, and the full scale of his crimes emerged at his 2013 trial. Sentencing him at Cardiff Crown Court, Judge John Royce called him a “deeply corrupting influence” and a “highly manipulative” and “dangerous” sexual predator, adding that the case “breaks new ground.”

HMP Wakefield, a maximum-security prison for men in West Yorkshire, has long been nicknamed “Monster Mansion” for housing some of the country’s most infamous prisoners, including serial killer Harold Shipman, Charles Bronson, and Robert Maudsley.

Watkins Murdered at HMP Wakefield in 2025

Watkins did not survive his second attack. On the morning of October 11, 2025, he was fatally stabbed in his cell at HMP Wakefield. Emergency services were called to the prison after he was assaulted with a knife, and the 48-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene. West Yorkshire Police launched a murder investigation, and the prison was placed into lockdown in the immediate aftermath.

Two serving prisoners, Rico Gedel (also listed as Rashid Gedel), 25, and Samuel Dodsworth, 43, were charged with murder, while two further inmates were later arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder as enquiries continued. Gedel was already serving a life sentence for a separate killing. A post-mortem attributed Watkins’s death to stab wounds to the head and neck inflicted with an improvised weapon, and reporting around the case pointed to tensions on a wing that mixed sex offenders with other high-security prisoners.

The trial of Gedel and Dodsworth opened at Leeds Crown Court in early May 2026. During proceedings, the court heard that Gedel, who said he resented being housed alongside sex offenders, had told Watkins “this is what paedophiles deserve,” while Dodsworth was accused of disposing of the makeshift knife afterward. Both men denied the charges. After roughly two weeks of evidence, on May 22, 2026, Mr Justice Hilliard discharged the jury “for legal reasons,” telling jurors he was doing so “very reluctantly” and that the case would have to be re-tried. As of this writing, a fresh trial is pending and neither defendant has been convicted in connection with the killing.

For more on violence behind bars targeting child sex offenders, see our earlier report on how one of the UK’s worst pedophiles was “stabbed to death” in his prison cell.