Former Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins has admitted that he is a paedophile, with the singer changing his plea from not guilty to guilty of 13 sexual offenses in Cardiff Crown Court today, including two of attempting to rape a baby, while his two female co-defendants, aged 21 and 24, also plead guilty to numerous child sex offenses.
Wales Online reports that the attempted rapes were caught on video in a London hotel room in April of 2012, later found on cloud storage belonging to the 36-year-old singer, although his lawyer, Sally O’Neill QC, said that Watkins “cannot remember” the incident. He denied two charges of raping the same child, but plead guilty to charges of possessing and taking indecent photographs of children and possessing extreme pornography depicting a person engaged in a sex act with an animal.
The court heard details of text messages between Watkins and his co-defendants, in which the musician suggested giving the victim crack cocaine, telling one of the women he wanted “to cross the line”. She replied with “A summer of incest and child porn”, to which he responded “Hell yes baby”, adding “The sooner we start training her the better.” Both women, who cannot be named for legal reasons, plead guilty to numerous charges against their own children.
Judge Justice Royce told the jury there would be no trial, adding, “You have been saved from having to watch extremely graphic and distressing material,” while the police chief in the trial described the crimes as “shocking and harrowing child abuse”.
Des Mannion, the national head of service for children’s charity NSPCC Wales, who helped police with the investigation, stated that Watkins clearly had a dangerous obsession with extreme child abuse:
“His global public profile provided him with access to impressionable young women who he was able to manipulate to feed his horrific desires. The length of his sentence should reflect this terrible abuse of power.”
Ian Watkins will face sentencing on 18th December.
(via NME)
