On the eve of his trial, Lostprophets vocalist Ian Watkins has pleaded guilty to 13 of the child sex offenses he’d been charged with, including the attempted rape of a baby, the BBC reports. This is an abrupt change, since he’d previously denied all of the allegations since being arrested last December. Watkins pleaded guilty to attempted rape and sexual assault of a child under 13, but not guilty to rape. He’ll be sentenced on the 18th of December. The vocalist admitted three counts of sexual assault involving children and six involving taking, making or possessing indecent images of children, and one of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving a sex act on an animal.
The other two women that had been arrested were accused by the court of sexually abusing their own children and making them available to Watkins for abuse. The court was told that text messages proved this, with one text to Watkins saying “If you belong to me, so does your baby.” The hearing was also told that Watkins wanted to “teach” the babies how to take drugs. The women both pleaded guilty, with one admitting attempted rape of a baby after denying rape and two charges of sexual assault as well as taking and distributing an indecent photograph of a child. The second pleaded guilty to conspiring to rape a child, three sexual assault charges and four charges of taking, possessing or distributing indecent images.
With Watkins and the two women pleading guilty to nearly all of the charges, it spares the jury what could have been an extremely graphic and disturbing trial. The remaining members of Lostprophets disbanded at the beginning of last month. It’s not certain how long Watkins’ sentence will be, but it’s safe to say that he’ll be behind bars for some time as this disturbing saga comes to close.
[UPDATE] The UK’s Huffington Post has some details about the charges against Watkins. There are some pretty upsetting things outlined here, and the article says that some of the more extreme offenses aren’t even worthy of being reported. Among the revelations:
- In a 45 minute webcam chat downloaded be detectives, Watkins told one of the two women charged “if you belong to me, so does your baby”
- The two discuss making the baby have sex with animals and take drugs
- The woman sent Watkins a picture of herself having oral sex with her baby
- In talking to Watkins, the mother referred to the child as “your little f**k toy”
- Watkins said he “wanted a summer of filthy child porn” in a message
- Investigators found videotapes of Watkins engaging in sex with a 16 year old fan that offered to lose her virginity to him. She flew from Boston to New York and he videotaped the act. The prosecutor adds that he finished by urinating on the girl and telling her to “drink his piss.”
There you have it. Ian Watkins is human scum. He might have been high on crystal meth the whole time he was investigated (they started investigating him in 2006, and he was arrested last year), but even if he was, this is completely inexcusable, and it doesn’t even go into the evidence that the article says is “too extreme and distressing to report.” It’s a good thing the case didn’t actually have to go to trial, both for the jurors, and for everyone else involved. According to the BBC, former Lostprophets guitarist Lee Gaze tweeted “That was over quick…. Thanks for the kind words. At least there is closure now.”
