Ian Watkins Dead

It is true that the relationship between them all had broken down in the last few years of the band, and that they kept their distance from him when off stage. That said, young teenage ‘groupies’ were a consistent backstage feature and his reputation for being a creep was well known. Hell, on LP fan site message boards ‘the younger looking the better’ was given as advice on how best to get his attention. He was openly referred to as a ‘pedo’. I doubt his bandmates knew about the extent of what he was doing, but there’s little chance that they weren’t aware of his behavior with teenagers.

IIRC Joanne would also post online about what he was doing, and she was constantly being attacked and dismissed as a crazy bitch. This was years before he was actually caught. The police didn’t want to investigate the ‘hometown hero, and they prosecuted her because they were furious at being embarrassed.

I'm glad though that there's now no chance of him ever getting out and reoffending

Well, that’s something at least I think we can all agree on!

I'm surprised he lasted this long in prison to be honest. From what I've read, he's always had a target on his back. I was a big lost prophets fan back in the day but obviously couldn't bring myself to listen to them now. The court documents and sentencing remarks were some of the most harrowing things I've ever read and that's just from how far I got before I had to stop reading.

I'm glad though that there's now no chance of him ever getting out and reoffending.

If you have the strength to watch the video for a town called hypocrisy then you will see that the band had no problem with him making a joke about teaching children Oral.....pause...hygiene and the overly sexualising of children. That culture for their production doesn't come as a one off. It's not hindsight saying this either. There were plenty at the time who saw that song for exactly what it is. He didn't write it, someone wrote that for him and somebody produced that disgusting official video for him.

It might not be as clear as it's made out to be in this regard. The Court transcript includes cases of him degrading young girls after concerts and in venues that the band were at. These were used to demonstrate his sadistic and depraved personality. One where he asked one to dress in school uniform and urinated on her face after taking her virginity. More details that I can't type here on other young girls involving drugs and extreme acts. These are in court documents because he filmed them. There is no evidence they knew of the extreme events that involved two young women offering their children to be raped which took place in hotels not associated with the band on tour, but the very least was they turned a blind eye to young fans being in his rooms. An ex girlfriend spent 4 years reporting him to different police forces and the band before he got arrested and all she got was arrested herself for possession of child abuse images that he sent her and she had kept as evidence to show the police. She was put on trial for this as 3 police forces were being investigated for taking no action against Watkins despite the significant evidence becoming apparent. There's a 4 year gap when people knew but didn't take the action they should have.

What Watkins did is far worse than murder.

That is famously untrue. No studies have demonstrated that capital punishment has a deterrent effect. For example, the rate of crimes which attract the death penalty are the same in states which do and don’t have the death penalty in America.

I fundamentally don’t believe in the state having authority to kill people. But even if you do believe that where there is no deterrent effect, and there is a risk of miscarriages of justice, do you still support it?

That’s a good point. Though hopefully they don’t agree with it being carried out by random violent individuals on a whim.

I know I came across poorly. It's just stories of people like him and what he did really get to me...

@CrispsPlease

You're welcome, thank you for apologising.

I'm not celebrating his death, nor am I remotely interested in knowing if he suffered. He was not given a whole life term which means he would have been released one day. Someone with his depraved history would almost certainly have offended again so I am relieved he will never have that opportunity.

The killers were not good people and will likely serve more time for this crime. A dead child abuser and one or more violent criminals kept away from law abiding people seems like a win. I say that pragmatically rather than with pleasure.

@IdealisticCynic

It looks like quite a few of the people who are thrilled about it do support capital punishment personally though - so in that respect, their viewpoint is consistent and makes sense.

Thankyou for clarifying. I appreciate your response and I'm sorry I became frustrated.

@CrispsPlease

I'm sure the fellow inmate is an abhorrent arsehole worthy of death himself.

Absolutely! That's all I was saying.

But for this particular act of his measly life- he's a hero.

Entirely fair comment, I can agree.

It's a bit like the feminism board. They're all oh so worried about murdering women being mixed with transwomen.

I don't visit the feminism board - based on how you describe it, though, it doesn't sound like a fun read/experience. Necromancy's more my kind of thing, though.

Women murderers exist. But they are vanishingly rare. A large proportion of female offenders are in prison because they are vulnerable in some way themselves. The top two crimes for which they are convicted are TV licence evasion and shoplifting (see You Gov statistics).

Compare the other demographic. The vast, vast majority of violent crime is committed by men. And over 98% of sexual offences - a verifiable statistic - are committed by men. Men who identify as women retain the same pattern of offending as other males, and some evidence suggests that they even surpass it.

Not housing males in the female estate is not a comparator with this wildly different scenario involving the worst manner of violent and sexual offenders in this country. In fact, the comparison is offensive.

If people were genuinely scared of consequences (i.e death) they would think twice before committing heinous crime. It's a great deterrent.

Trying to "educate" evil makes middle class people feel good about themselves. But it does not work. Full stop.

Stop fucking picking apart how I've worded that I'm glad a fellow inmate murdered a baby rapist.

I'm sure the fellow inmate is an abhorrent arsehole worthy of death himself. But for this particular act of his measly life- he's a hero.

It's a bit like the feminism board. They're all oh so worried about murdering women being mixed with transwomen.

@BlackbirdPieAndMash

You're upset about the wrong thing. We’re just glossing over what this guy did? I’m not even repeating it, it’s vile.

I’m not remotely “glossing over” what he did. I have said I am glad he’s dead. I haven’t seen any dissent on this.

But the cheering and congratulation of other violent arseholes is just weird. These people calling them “mate” are like the people you see banging on paddy wagons when someone is sentenced for a crime. Creepy punishment vultures who get a kick out of vigilante justice. The guy has already been murdered, why the ecstasy of grim happiness over it. Grim.

Thankfully the majority in the UK still doesn’t support capital punishment. Nice to see someone else on this thread making that clear!

But what I, perhaps unclearly, was saying that I thought was unpopular is that when capital punishment and mob rule are outlawed, people shouldn’t be so thrilled that some prisoner killed another. What Ian Watkins did was unspeakably vile, but so is murder.

Agree. This is another good example of the real risk of vigilantism turning into tragedy. Case in point: the vigilante mob who were too ignorant to differentiate between a paediatrician and a paedophile.

This is why we have a justice system and proper legal process for trying, convicting and punishing offenders. It may be infalliable but it's the best we have.

We've seen where mob rule leads. I doubt whether anyone here would genuinely argue that this is desirable.

@CrispsPlease

I'm not middle class, I'm working class.

You're hyper focusing on the wrong thing. Your middle class elitism obviously just wants to pick apart how working class people talk. Now bore off.

@Thepeopleversuswork

Yes - it's not the fact that people are happy and celebrating Watkins' death that is obectionable to me. I totally understand that. Have at it and celebrate the fact that he's gone!

It's the fond view of his murderer as an individual that I am quibbling. Unless IW's murderer is innocent of whatever he was convicted of - which, considering he's murdered a fellow inmate is unlikely to be the case - then the stabber is almost, if not equally, as terrible as Watkins himself.

@CrispsPlease I mean this sincerely - if it came to light that the murderer of Ian Watkins was ALSO a child rapist, would you still feel like calling them 'mate' and saying 'have a drink on me'.

Okay, perhaps you don't really literally mean those words and it's hyperbole coming from being (understandably) celebratory that Ian Watkins is dead. But I don't think it's unreasonable for people to find the wording to be questionable judgement.

Totally agree.

The jokes about H from steps are really cruel. A person's name is a massive part of someone's identity and to have your name tarnished in the way his has been must be awful. He's already been mistaken in the media for being the lost prophet singer.

Leave the poor guy out of this.