RedHanded - Episode 81 - Ian Watkins: Rock Star, Paedophile, Nepiophile

Episode Date: February 7, 2019

This week the girls delve into the all too common world of the celebrity paedophile and institutions who turn a blind eye. Ian Watkins was the lead singer of Welsh rock band Lostprophets. He toured all over the world, playing to sold out stadiums of adoring fans - so in 2012 when he was arrested and charged with 13 counts of child sex offences, including against a child as young as 11 months old, the world was shocked. This is a particularly troubling case because it of course covers the abuse this depraved man doled out to incredibly young victims, but there are also deeply troubling questions raised about why authorities missed chance after chance to catch Watkins.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti.

I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. And today, we don't usually do this. We don't usually give warnings because I kind of feel like if you're an adult listening to a true crime podcast, like you know what you're letting yourself in for. But this week's episode, we wanted to give you guys a warning. This is a really fucked up story. There is a lot of child sexual abuse occurring in this story. We're not going to go into obviously the details of it, but we are going to talk about what we think is important to put the story into context. So if you don't feel like you're up for that,

if you don't really feel like you can handle it, just don't listen. He's one of the most depraved people that I feel like I've come across in a long time. He's just fucking evil. He's like completely depraved. So you've been warned with that. We're going to get started now. We're going to Wales today. Have we been to Wales before? I have been to Wales before. No, have we done a case? I meant not have you physically been to Wales? Oh, right. So like thinking about the time I went to Wales and I stayed in this place that's pronounced Portmadoc, but it's written Porthamadog.

Portmadoc's beautiful. It's like a little chocolate box town. Yeah, it was nice. It was nice. We stayed in a little static caravan on the beach. It was good. We haven't been to Wales before, I don't think. So first opportunity to crack out a Welsh accent just to like ease us into this horrifying case. Have you got one? We're off to Wales today. That's not terrible. Down to the valleys. No, that's not a lot.

He's a valley boy. We're off to Wales. Down to the valleys. No, I've lost it. Can't do it. I can say a Welsh name in a Welsh accent. Go on. Say Ian Watkins in a Welsh accent.

No, it's a girl's name. I can only say one word in a Welsh accent. Oh, man. Angharad. Okay, good. So I can say we're off to Wales. Off to the valleys. I can only say one word. Oh my. Welsh accent. Oh man. Angharad. Okay. Good. So I can say we're off to Wales, off to the valleys. The only gay in the village. There's a Welsh version of Thomas the Tank Engine called Ivor the Engine.

Oh my God. And I think it might be older than Thomas the Tank Engine. And they're all Welsh in that. And that's what you sound like. You sound like the guy who narrates Ivor the Engine. So I sound like an old Welsh train. An old Welsh train, yeah. Good. I think his like woo woo whistle is a church organ or something. I think. who narrates eye of the engine like an old welsh train an old welsh train yeah good i think he's

like woo woo whistle is a church organ or something i think oh that's i can't remember i don't know why i was watching eye of the engine yeah i mean that's very it's a very complicated story it feels like it's very niche you know i do need a little bit of a breather before we get into this case because like if i don't laugh at least for the first five minutes of this story I am going to fucking start crying and throw myself out of a window so now I've laughed yeah there's not a lot of jokes in this one a lot of jokes there's not a lot of laughter so let's get it out of the way and I feel like the only other time the Welsh accent might creep up is when we say the word pontipryd I feel like it's hard to say pontipryd without saying it in a Welsh accent

yeah I don't think I can say it but I think I'm incapable of saying it. I really don't think I can. We're going to find out soon. I hope it's in your bit. Who knows? Right. So, Ian Watkins was the lead singer of the British band Lost Prophets. And like any rock star, he was, of course, adored by teenagers across the world. But the thing is, they were far too old for him. Because offstage, Ian Watkins was depraved beyond belief. And like we said at the start, honestly, this case is a lot. This man committed some of the most awful acts imaginable. And the worst part, his victims were children and babies. Watkins used the power of his celebrity, coupled with aggressive manipulation tactics, to groom his female fans with children, to both give him access to their children,

and also, unbelievably, to sexually abuse their own children for his pleasure. In 2012, when news first broke of the reason behind Ian Watkins' arrest, it brought to an end one of Britain's most successful rock bands of the early 2000s. The day it all came out, the band's website disappeared, their social media disappeared, retailers pulled their records from their shelves and even paving stones engraved with the band's lyrics in their hometown of Pontypridd were pulled up and smashed. Now the common themes that run through this case are strikingly similar to that of the case of Jimmy Savile. Watkins was brazen. He delighted in his depravity. He barely

hid his behaviour. And to this day, he remains completely remorseless for what he did. And as ever, we have to start at the beginning. Ian David Carslake Watkins was born in Wales on July 30th, 1977. He grew up in Pontypridd in South Wales. And I did some looking into other famous people from Pontypridd, the drummer from ACDC. Oh. Also from there. I thought Anthony Hopkins was from there, but he's not. So, sorry, fake news.

That was my fault. He's from somewhere else that's a small village in Wales. I think Rob bryden's from there as well there's one village in wales where it just like sprouts famous people there must be in the water wales itself as we find out in this episode has like thrown a lot of very famous people out onto the world stage like dame shirley bassey tom jones yeah i feel like adele might be welsh she's like from north london i'll cut that out then someone else is welsh one of the many other pop stars is welsh i think good top knowledge top knowledge but it was i did read this article and it was like whoever you are if you're from wales and you're trying to be famous

you will always be in the shadow of tom well they're not wrong no it's not not wrong are they he's king of wales old tom jones is he still alive i don't actually know i think i feel like he i think he is there would have been a whole thing if he had died a national day of mourning tom jones is still definitely alive we'll just cut this if he's dead if we've left this in he's alive fucking breaking news hannah tom jones alive still alive exclamation mark god we're procrastinating today we just don't today. We just don't want to do it. We don't want to get into it. So he's from this town in Bontebride. The drummer from ACDC is also from.

And he went to a local comprehensive called Hawthorne High. Academically speaking, Watkins did well at school. He was always noted as being bright and a high achiever. At home, there was nothing particularly remarkable or noteworthy about his upbringing. His father died when he was five, and three years later, his mother Elaine married Baptist minister John Davies. Ian's mum, who seemed like a totally ordinary woman, said that Ian was loved, cherished, encouraged, and nurtured. We did our best. He was a normal, happy young lad who grew up in the valleys

in a loving family which had no more problems than anybody else has should we explain what the valleys are i feel like we've said it a lot of times yeah i mean go nuts explain the valleys to the people of the world when i said that i was hoping that you would explain what the valleys were so i think that the valleys is like the southern part of Wales and it's just like very rural and it's like a lot of industry is there. Because I read this article about why so much, so many like rock bands came out of the valleys of South Wales and they said it was because it like fits with the industrial life that the people live there.

It's just like a rural part of Wales, I think. Yeah, I think you're probably right. Let's leave it at that before I expose myself anymore. After high school, Watkins went to the University of Wales in Newport, where he got a first in graphic design. After he graduated, he quickly got a job as a graphic designer, but he was always distracted by his music. At the age of just 14, Watkins and his school friends and future Lost Prophets bandmate had started a band called Aftermath. They played mainly in Watkins' garden shed and their local

park. Oh, Jesus God. What is this? Okay, this word begins with a Y. Y and an N. Y-N-S-A-N-G-H-A. I can't. What is it? So I tried to have somebody say it to me on the internet. And it was, sounds like Annie Sanghad Park. Okay. I used to live with a guy whose first language is Welsh, which is quite rare these days. Was he an elf? It sounds like goblins. So when he'd be on the phone to his dad asking for money or whatever, he'd be doing it all

in Welsh. We also lived with an American. And she genuinely thought for the entire year that we lived together that Wales and Welsh were made up and he'd been doing it for a joke the entire year. I have no words. I have no words. Yeah. Good. That was a fun flat. Anyway, so they're in the unpronounceable park that Cerise did such a good job of. And that park, 17 years later, lost profits would headline at the full Ponty Festival. So yeah, it's just crazy. It's like these kids, they're just like 14, 15, they start a band, they're just like fucking about in the park with it.

But 17 years later, they like headline a music festival there. That's nuts. I just think nobody thought anything of them, you know. But the thing is, like, they start with this band Aftermath, but perhaps feeling that Aftermath wasn't really getting anywhere, or maybe due to, like, changing music tastes, Watkins abandoned the thrash metal band Aftermath to start a new band called Fleshbind with a new mate, and again, future Lost Prophets bandmate, Lee Gaze. Now, Fleshbind moved away from the, like, thrash metal of Aftermath

and it was heavily influenced by like American punk. And actually Fleshbind were somewhat successful. They even featured as a support act for Feeder in London. They're still really young at this point. But again the band despite like the minor success wasn't really working. So in 1995, Watkins formed a band called Public Disturbance. And again, it sort of fell apart. So finally, in 1997, they formed Lost Prophets. And they were bang on trend and right on time because rock music of the South Wales Valleys was booming in the 90s and early 2000s. Like we said, so many bands came out of this tiny part of the world. I have to say, when I first read that, I was like, yeah, right. No, they didn't. And then they obviously do with this very impressive list. Yeah, exactly. They do. This

is the thing. And it's like, it is a super impressive list because the bands that come out, the bands that come out of Wales during this very specific era were bands like Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals, Stereophonics, Bullet for My Valentine and Funeral for a Friend. And up until I'm going to say like a few years ago, you would add Lost Prophets to that list. And like we said, Lost Prophets came out of nowhere. And I think that was like their charm. They were just a bunch of like valley boys who had grown up together, making music that they loved. And Watkins as their frontman definitely had the outward personality

and persona they needed to drive them forward. Just YouTube it and watch any interview with him. He's charismatic, cocky, funny. And he really was, I think, the main focus for the fans. And I can't stress just how big a band they were. They were touring all over the world they'd cracked america and japan and the world was their emo oyster if you want to watch an interview with him that totally encapsulates his whole vibe youtube him on cduk

being interviewed by kat dealy and talking about how much he hates mcfly yes exactly that is the one and it's so funny because i watched the exact same one and Sean Paul is sat next to him and looks deeply, deeply, like, uncomfortable. Yeah, Sean Paul is like, this is the worst day of my life. Yeah, you could be like, I'm a real band, I started this properly with my mates, busted or, like, just put together on McFly or whatever, just put together.

But, like, you don't say that on a TV interview with Cat Dealey. No, you can't say it. Not to Cat Dealey. It just sums him up. Like, he's't say that on a TV interview with Cat Dealey. No, you can't say it. Not to Cat Dealey. It just sums him up. Like, he's such a narcissist. Like, just sat there slagging off other musicians. And yeah, look at Sean Paul's face. I feel so sorry for him.

He's just like, who the fuck is this kid? I don't think you could have two more opposite ends of the spectrum people, Sean DePaul and then fucking the front man of the Lost Prophets sitting on the same sofa. Only on CD UK could that happen. It was perfect. It was perfect. What excellent television. I miss the 90s. Just the look on Sean Paul's face is the best thing. He's looking around, looking slightly baffled because he doesn't know who McFly are and he doesn't know who this guy is.

So after years of shed life for his various bands, Watkins and the Lost Prophets finally hit it big in November 2000 when they released their debut album, The Fake Sound of Progress. Two singles to come out of this album, Shinobi vs Dragon Ninja and The Fake Sound of Progress, soon became ubiquitous at rock and indie nights across the UK. In 2006, their third album, Liberal Transmission, entered the charts at number one. Most of their early success was definitely before our time, we're about 10. The first song of theirs I was ever really aware of was Last Train Home, which came out in 2003. And this single was the band's joint highest charting in the UK, tied with R with rooftops.

That's the one I could, you asked me to name a lost profit song. I think that's basically the only one I'd be able to do. Last Train Home is the only one I knew. Like, absolutely. I was never like a fan of theirs. No, I wasn't either really. No, I think that one was just sufficiently big enough that everyone heard it. Do you know what's really weird? I was thinking about if I had any sort of lost profit stories

and I'd gone I was on holiday with like another family and their kid who was eight really wanted to go and see lost profits on tour and he was talking about it constantly and he was younger than you yeah yeah yeah oh wow they were big at the time like I guess we can't judge him for that he didn't know that the front man was a giant fucking pedo. No, it just makes me feel really weird. Do you know what makes me feel really weird?

Google Lost Prophet tattoos. No way. Way. So way. Oh, God. So many ways. So Last Train Home remains their most

successful single in the United States and it reached number one in the Billboard's alternative song chart. And during their 15-year career, Lost Prophet sold some three and a half million albums, which meant that when Ian Watkins was finally arrested for a string of sexual offences

against a baby as young as 11 months, there were an awful lot of fans around to be left reeling by the news. Like I said, I was never really a fan of their music. I guess I did definitely listen to Last Train Home, but I remember, yeah was never really a fan of their music. I guess I did definitely listen to Last Train Home, but I remember, yeah, like I obviously knew who they were. And I remember being on holiday in Morocco when the news broke and the place I was staying, I just like saw a glimpse of it on my iPhone. And I was like, what the fuck? Ian Watkins, front man for like the Lost Prophets has been arrested for baby rape. I was like,

fuck. But the internet was so bad where i was staying i couldn't read anything at all about it but when i got home and i read about it i was like i like do you remember this happening because i just remember being what like completely out of my mind shocked like i'd never heard anything like this it was crazy i remember reading like a headline that was like, Ian Watkins heads pedophile ring or something like that. But I never really got the details of it at the time, I don't think. Maybe because I wasn't that invested in Lost Prophets. I wasn't. No, no, that's true. That's true. But I am invested in Paul H from Steps having the same name. Oh my god, yes. He can't catch a break. So Steps, everybody remembers the band steps completely innocent band completely

innocent hate from steps is a real name is ian watkins and he got fucking torn to pieces on twitter by thinking it was him that was the pedophile yeah it's not him or h from steps it's not him leave steps alone he just wants to do musical theater he's so innocent but not everyone can have been totally surprised. Rumours about Watkins' sexual proclivity for young girls and children had been making the rounds on lost profit message boards for years. But whether his fans or his bandmates had ever suspected anything, South Wales police had been told long before, four years before he was finally arrested, to be precise. Because Ian Watkins was known to police and social services as early as 2008, but he had

remained free to continue his abuse. Now, we come on to a main player in our story today now. She's a woman named Joanne Majelix. And I'm not sure exactly what I think of Joanne. So I won't tell you what to think. But I'm sure by the time we finish this episode, you'll see why it's not that simple to draw a conclusion when it comes to Joanne. So Joanne was a huge fan of the Lost Prophets. And in particular, of Ian Watkins. Watkins was very good at managing his public image, at least at the start.

And he put out this nice guy image of him being a loving family guy. In 2008, he became an ambassador for the Kidney Whales Foundation because his mum had undergone a kidney transplant after waiting seven years for the organ. Touched by his charity work, Joanne got in touch with Watkins on the internet. And unbelievably, because remember, at this point, Ian Watkins is a household name. The two struck up a relationship. Joanne says that he swept her off her feet and that she fell in love with him. That is so weird. Isn't it? Like, imagine just like tweeting a celebrity and then they reply and you start a relationship with

them. That just doesn't happen. That's so bizarre. It only happens when that person thinks that they can fucking manipulate you into something. Joanne Majelix was an escort, but she insisted that the two were in love and their sexual relationship wasn't a professional arrangement. At first, things seemed great for Joanne, but then Ian Watkins started to say weird things to her.

He told her that he loved sleeping with his 14-year-old fans and taking their virginities. And then he started to go even further. He told Joanne that he wanted to get her pregnant so that he could abuse their baby. And this feels to me like he's testing her. He's checking, how far can I go? What will this woman allow me to do? Joanne said that at this point she threatened to report Ian to the police. He begged her not to and got his lawyers to draw up a gag order and she signed it. Can you imagine going into a room full of lawyers and be like,

so basically I told her that I want to fuck kids. Can you write up a really specific gag order for that specific thing that I've said, please? Who are these lawyers? The whole thing is, this whole bit of this story is so bizarre because he goes and gets this gag order drawn up and the gag order basically says that everything she's saying about him or anything she might say about him is a lie. And then he gets her to sign it and she signs it. And she doesn't just sign it. Watkins gave her £2,000, which she took. I don't really understand what's happened here. She says that she's horrified, rightfully so. Then she threatens to go to the police, but ends up signing away her freedom to talk about her fears and taking money from the person.

You know that what you are doing is wrong. I don't understand at all. Because she says, you know, at the start in the interview, she says, oh, you oh you know even though I'm an escort our relationship was purely based on love like he wasn't paying me for it but then she says when she takes this two grand she says it was him paying her for her escorting services but when you read the gag order it's in there as part of consideration in the contract so it's I'm giving you two thousand to take away like you selling this story or you doing anything with this information and you sign away your right to talk about it publicly. And she signs it. That's the thing. And somebody is saying all these fucked up things to you and you're that horrified. Why threaten to report him? Why not get the fuck away from him and go report him? Or at

least just get the fuck away from him, you know? don't know I think I think when it comes to famous people like really famous famous people gag orders are just pretty much part of the day-to-day I've heard I don't know if this is true um but a friend of mine claims to have slept with a footballer a friend of mine slept with genuine stop it I won't it's true and so my mate says so basically this footballer is uh married with children my mate is a male so he he said but before they had sex he had to sign a gag order before they could do anything he like he just had it in the kitchen just like there you go just had a whole stack of them wow maybe if she was a high end escort maybe she was used to the gag order game maybe i don't know a lot of people do paint her as a bit of a villain and some people paint her as a total victim but like we said we remain undecided on her

it's hard because like in the end she does bring him down but along the way there's a lot of questionable stuff that goes on what i will say is i don't think that she was involved in the abuse she does do some strange stuff uh that doesn't make a lot of sense but i don't think she was involved in no i don't think so either and she definitely doesn't walk away though at this point because like Hannah said, she sticks around right up until the end. And a few months after signing this gag order saying that she wasn't going to tell anybody about what he was doing or what he was saying, she changed her mind

when Ian sent her a disturbing image. Also, again with him, it's like the arrogance of this guy. He knows that she's not totally cool with it. The things that he's saying, even if she thinks that it's like the arrogance of this guy he knows that she's not totally cool with it the things that he's saying even if he she thinks that it's like just role play or something because she's already threatened once to go to the police yes you have a gag order but a gag order doesn't stop a person going to the police a gag order just stops a person going to like the media about it and he then sent her this abuse like this image this indecent image. It's very weird. What's he playing at?

Is it just a power play? I think it is. I think he just thinks, I'm fucking Ian Watkins. I can do what I want. I've got a team of people to keep me safe and I pay them a lot of money to keep me that way. Absolutely. I think that's exactly what it is, which we've seen how many billions of times with famous people. Joanne, when she receives this image from Ian Watkins in December 2008,

she went to Children's Services and reported Ian Watkins. She told them all about the weird stuff that Ian had said to her. And she explained that he had recently told her that he had given an infant cocaine and touched the child in a sexual way. And she said she had proof. She gave them the photo that Ian had sent her. It was a photo of a young girl of about four years old who was holding a framed photo. In the frame, there was a picture of a half-naked woman. But on the glass of the photo frame, there was a line of white powder. And in the girl's hand, the four-year-old girl's hand, there was a rolled up £20 note. That is such a bizarre like image to

even like try to imagine in my mind how would you explain to a four-year-old how to do a line of coke like how do you how i can't get my head around it i just can't get my head around so much of this case now when watkins had sent joanne the image he had told her that that white powder was cocaine and he said that the little girl was quote super flirty saying you know what little girls are like. Now when telling children's services everything Joanne said quote my heart sank because it made me ill. I was completely confused. I was totally in love with the man yet he sent me this picture. How could I be in love with a man that sends that image? The children's services passed the information on to South Wales police and Joanne said that she even went to the police station herself

to reiterate what had happened. She said that after telling both children's services and the police her story, they took her out of the loop and refused to tell her anything more. Joanne said that she stopped seeing Watkins and she stopped replying to his messages and she kept calling the police to see how the investigation was progressing. But according to Joanne, all police would say every time she rang was that they hadn't decided how to interview her yet. I don't really know what that means. No, I don't know what that means.

You sit her down in a chair and ask her some questions. But finally, in April 2009, so four months after she's made her first allegations against Watkins, police came to Joanne's house and took a video statement. But by May of 2009, the police decided that there was insufficient evidence to pursue the matter and no further action was taken. And whether we think it's okay or not, the police don't follow up on this initial complaint. But it gets much, much worse. Because over the next four years, South Wales police would receive numerous more complaints about Watkins,

from drug use to possession of indecent images of children and a sexual interest in children. But each and every allegation was dismissed. But let's go back to 2009 for a moment. Now, this was the point during which the Lost Prophets were in their heyday. They were regularly headlining huge festivals all over the world. And a year after the release of The Fake Sound of Progress, the band was snapped up by Columbia Records and heavyweight manager Peter Mensch, whose company Q Prime looked after bands like Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Muse. They were in the big time, it was clear. Playing with the big boys.

When they get picked up by Columbia Records, when they had released originally that album, The Fake Sound of Progress, they'd recorded it all in two weeks for £4,000, like seriously on a budget. This guy heard it, picked them up, took all of the original copies off the shelves, re-recorded it all and re-released it. They put a lot into this band. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were on the cusp here. And until this point, Watkins had been totally sober. So until like 2009, completely straight laced, no drink, strictly no drugs, nothing. To to the outside world he was like tap water like so plain and they're like in la now being signed by like columbia records i was so surprised when i read that i'd never have thought that totally to be a teetotaler you know what i was thinking about so

i was like why and i wondered what somebody like ian watkins he knows there's all this dark shit simmering just beneath the surface. You start drinking, you start taking drugs, that's going to slip out. People are going to know. Oh, that's true. That's a good point. Is it a way to control that? Keep it down.

Maybe. And maybe, I mean, he's clearly a very manipulative and controlling person. Maybe he didn't like the feeling of being out of control. Yeah, exactly. He is totally needs control all of the time. Come on. Things like this, this level of like depravity, the sexual crimes that we see with him, the manipulation. It's totally needs control all of the time. Come on. Things like this, this level of like depravity, the sexual crimes that we see with him, the manipulation, it's all about control.

You're right. I don't think Ian Watkins would have liked not being in control. Up until this point, he'd never done anything. But now, around 2009, Watkins started to party. Now the band, like we said, were mostly in LA at this point. And Watkins went, according to his friends and bandmates, from being straight edged to a junkie almost overnight. It's like when people leave being Amish and just get super fucked up and addicted to heroin within like a week. Absolutely. Rum Springer. I also watched that documentary about Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and one guy left his community

and just got almost instantly addicted to heroin it's just like ban things like that or you make you like think you're sheltering people from the like big scary world but then when they are exposed to it it's just like fuck I don't know how to cope that's not what happened with Ian Watkins I think he was just like fuck it I'm now famous no one's gonna touch me so I might as well get totally fucked up and even if the dark shit comes out who's gonna fucking do anything about it I'm too famous to fail exactly so when this happened his friends and his bandmates didn't know what to do Watkins according to them was constantly off his face he stopped showering and his apartment was a complete tip I think he just

did like a total 180 and in 2010 the band came home from LA to be part of a Welsh government campaign, very specifically, I thought, promoting the Valleys. That is quite specific, I suppose. That's what you think of when you think of Wales, isn't it? You think of the Valleys, I think. Yeah, that's what I think of. Or that bridge in Cardiff. Or in Swansea, where they've got a massive heroin problem. All the good stuff. Those are my Wales facts for you.

Good facts. So when Watkins came home to be a part of this like Valleys campaign, Joanne reached out to him and apologised. Remember the last time they had been in touch with each other, Joanne was like, fuck this, I'm reporting you to the police. And they just didn't do anything with it. But now he's back and she's apologising to him. And she told him that maybe she'd got it wrong. Maybe it all just been like coke chat. And maybe he was innocent because the police hadn't done anything. That's not how it works. And this is the kind of stuff I get confused about with Joanne because she's so sure that he is what he is. And he is what he is. She reports him. She phones him again and again

and again, like the police trying to chase up on the case, they don't go anywhere. And now he's back. She's like, oh, I'm sorry. Is it just like the attraction of him as a famous person? I think it has to be. I think one thing that becomes very clear in this case is he's very good at getting women to do exactly what he wants. And she's been in a relationship with him. She thinks she loves him. So he can probably talk around to anything, I think. I was initially quite surprised where she sort of goes back to him and apologises but I kind of understand if you accept that he is as charming and as manipulative as he clearly is. I kind of get it. No that's fair. So after this apology the two of them decided to meet up a few weeks later in a hotel in Leeds and during this meeting Watkins isn't like oh let's be chill like we've just made up again.

No, no, no. During this meeting, Joanne saw a video on Watkins' laptop showing a young girl being raped. She said that he just sat there watching it in front of her with an evil smirk on his face. I think it's just him being like, you're back now. I can do what I want. Yeah, 100%. And this is what I want to do. Try and stop me.

He's pushed the boundaries so far with Joanne Majelix. He's, like, tested her. And she's come back. And now he's like, I can do whatever the fuck I want. You're not going anywhere. And he said some of the most depraved things you could possibly imagine to this woman. She's reported him and no one had believed her. And then she comes back.

He must have loved that. He was like, oh, yeah, you can go to the police. Even the police aren't going to help you because I am that famous. He thinks he's untouchable. And more clearly than anyone we've covered, I think, he genuinely thinks that nobody can touch him. Absolutely. Even after all the tales Joanne had told the police, Ian Watkins' career was stronger than ever. He was feeling pretty unstoppable by then.

Joanne said that once she saw the video, she realised that she wasn't wrong, and she threw him out of her hotel room. Despite what she'd seen, Joanne said that she didn't feel like she could report him yet. If they hadn't believed her the last time, why would they believe her now? But it wasn't just Joanne Majelix who was raising the alarm about Ian Watkins. In October 2010, South Wales got information from the Metropolitan Police about another complainant who was concerned about Watkins' behaviour. But it appears that again, South Wales Police ignored this information because nine months later, Watkins was back in LA. Perhaps unbelievably, Joanne and Watkins stayed in touch. This is the kind of thing that I don't get.

Like, at this point, she was like, oh, maybe I'm wrong. But then she sees the fucking rape video when they meet up and she's like, I'm not wrong,

throws him out. And then she carries on talking to him. It's so complicated. I think what's confusing with her is that with the other two women that we go on to find out

that he, like, fully manipulates, Joanne Majelik swings back and forth she swings to be like on his side and going and talking to him and then she also aggressively swings the other way where she goes and reports him to the police and then swings backwards but the other women are like no i'm fully in camp ian watkins yeah that's true that's the thing that confuses me about her because i can totally believe in coercive control, abuse, like that level of manipulative power.

But she has moments of like pure clarity. She's totally lucid and aggressively so. And then she comes back to him. That's the thing that I find hard to understand. And it's not, like we said, I'm not trying to like be like, oh, Joanne Majelix is a bitch. She is not the fucking criminal in this case. Ian Watkins is the criminal in this case. I just don't understand her motivations.

That's the only thing. No. I also don't really understand what his motivation is for still hanging out with her. He's got endless women that he can do anything he wants to, but he keeps in touch with Joanne for some reason. So as Ian left Wales, he told Joanne that he wanted to get back to LA because there he had, and this is a quote, an obsessive junkie fan who had a five-year-old daughter that she let him rape. And to prove it, Watkins again sent Joanne three indecent images.

Shocked, Joanne went back to the South Wales police. When she got to the police, she was referred back to the same child protection team that she had made her original complaint to and back to the same detective as last time, Detective Sergeant Andrew Whelan. Joanne says that as she told Andrew Whelan her story, the detective just looked at her as if he'd already decided that she was making it all up. And she says that he seemed to imply that Joanne was just really upset that her ex had ditched her. We could be like, this is all just in Joanne's head. But the truth of the matter is, Detective Sergeant Andrew Whelan does fuck all after this complaint. I'm guessing she's not far off the truth. So Joanne said that during this visit to the police, the detective wouldn't even

look through her phone at the pictures she said Ian Watkins had sent her because he'd sent her by now four pictures and she's saying look at my phone and they apparently are like nah we're good why I find that so bizarre it's unbelievable I find it so bizarre I think it's because he's famous I think the thing is with famous people like you sort of unwillingly perhaps create a picture in like I have an opinion of what Victoria Beckham is like as a person I don't know her it's completely made up I've made it up but if someone says something that goes against my beliefs on Victoria Beckham I'm like you're wrong yeah yeah do you know what I mean so they've just decided that Ian Watkins is this Welsh national

hero and he can't do any wrong and that's why nothing happened and if he has I don't want to see it I don't want to know about it now fearing that no one was following up on her complaints, Joanne decided to do a bit of digging on her own. Now, remember that first image that Ian had sent to Joanne, the one of the four-year-old girl with the rolled up £20 note? I suspect that this girl was local to, like, the Valleys area because Joanne was able to find the girl's dad and she asked him if he was aware of the complaint that she had made in 2008

because when she made that complaint, social services had told her that they couldn't tell her any more information but that they would be in touch with the girl's parents as part of their investigation. But to Joanne's surprise, the girl's father said that he'd never been approached by social services and he was totally shocked to see the image. So now this girl's father went to South Wales police and reported the photo. And this story has been verified independently and by the girl's father, who, like, I couldn't

find his name anywhere, I guess, to protect the girl's identity. I don't think it's been released. But in media interviews, he confirms the story that Joanne told. He confirms that she found him and that he didn't know anything about this. And again, the father states this in an interview just where his identity is protected. The father says that when he went to the police about the photo, he was told by detectives not to pursue the issue any further because, quote, it would ruin Ian Watkins' career. It's sickening that we have this thing in society where famous people are more valuable than normal people.

You could even extrapolate it down to not just famous people, but like, I know you hate when I bring up this person, but Brock Turner, how the dad is just like, oh, but he can swim really fast. For like five minutes of what he did, you want to ruin his entire life. Like, go fuck yourself. This whole idea that somehow people who are in some way that is very subjectively speaking talented and valuable to the rest of the world can therefore be let off with getting to act

however the fuck they want. Absolutely fucking not. If any, they should be held to a higher level of scrutiny. Unbelievable. If this is true and this is what the police said to him, this is un-fucking-believable. And I wonder if it said not in a way of like, we know he did it, but leave it alone, but in a way of like, there's not that much evidence, don't go around yelling about this, it's fine, you're gonna like stir shit up that you don't need to. I have to believe that even if they said that the police

didn't believe that he had actually done it, like I have to believe that, at least at this point. And this just gets worse because the police also tell the father not to worry because they looked into the allegations and that it was fine because they were satisfied that his daughter was safe. Oh, good. My mind is so at ease now. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry.

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Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. In March 2012, things started to spiral. Joanne got in contact with a woman on Twitter who she knew was also speaking to Watkins. Joanne says that she knew that the woman had a young child and she was worried. Joanne and this woman, who would go on to become known as Woman B, swapped numbers and began speaking on the phone. Joanne told Woman B that she was going to report Watkins again to the police, but that she needed more proof and asked Woman B that she was going to report Watkins again to the police, but that she needed more proof, and asked Woman B if she had any. She asked if Watkins had ever been inappropriate about her child.

Woman B said yes. She said that Watkins said he wanted to put GHB in her son's sippy cup and on his dummy and rape him. Joanne and Woman B agreed to go to Doncaster Police Station to report him, because that's where Woman B lived. Do you know what though? Yes, he's very famous. And he's very rich. And clearly a horrible, horrible bastard. But he's not the President of the United States. Do you know what I mean? Initially I thought like, oh well maybe she's scared to give evidence against him

because he's so famous and he could ruin her life. Like, he's not like the spy king. He's the singer of an average alternative rock band. The thing is that I find with this case is, especially with woman B and woman A that we'll go on to hear about, that they just were willing to sacrifice anything for his attention and his love. Like, I think that's it. You know, I read some of the messages that he'd been sending them and like that they'd been communicating with.

I am almost 100% sure that Woman B told him everything that had happened with Joanne and he had been like, you're not fucking going to the police station. When you read the messages, it's like so childlike manipulation, like teenage manipulation. He says things to Woman B like, you're the only woman who's ever kept me interested this long. And she's like, oh my God, really? Like, he made them feel special. He picked, he profiled and picked vulnerable women like Joanne Majelix, like woman A, like woman B. Then he gave them that thing that was missing in their life. And then they were so damaged enough that they were able to give up everything in their life for his love and attention.

I don't even think it just was to do with him being famous. Yeah, I think you're probably right. I think that helped. By April 2012, Watkins was the worst he'd ever been. He was totally wrecked on drugs all the time and the band was starting to fall apart. His record company and bandmates held an intervention, but Watkins was spiralling. Back in the UK, Essex Police contacted South Wales Police with more concerns that had been brought to their attention from a different complainant. And at the same time, another

case emerged about Detective Sergeant Andrew Whelan. There were now reports emerging that he didn't act on suspicions of a man accused of raping a 14-year-old girl. The man wasn't arrested or charged following these allegations. And five months later, the same man went on to rape a five-year-old. This man was known to South Wales police. He should have been stopped. And the question became, why wasn't he? And don't worry, we will come back to Detective Sergeant Andrew Whelan. So finally, on September the 21st, 2012, four years after the first concerns had been raised about Ian Watkins,

he was arrested for possession of drugs. And during the arrest, police also took his laptop, but it was heavily encrypted. And it seems, oddly to me, that getting into this wasn't high on the police's list of priorities because it would be another couple of months before they got round to seeing what was on Ian Watkins' laptop. I'm sorry, you arrest this man who's got previous allegations made against him of child sexual behaviour. You arrest him, his laptop is heavily encrypted. Aren't you like, we need to get into there? But they leave it, for the time being at least. And Ian Watkins was released on bail.

And guess what? He got back in touch with Joanne Majelix and she agreed to meet him. Now, again at this point, we could be like, why is she meeting up with him again? But Joanne says in an interview that at this point, she only kept meeting up with Watkins so that she could keep getting evidence to use in order to keep reporting him to the police. I don't know why Joanne feels like she needs to take on that burden. Well, they don't believe her. No, they don't believe her. So maybe she just feels like she's just got to keep collecting

more and more evidence until they can't ignore it. But it is odd. That's fair enough. So maybe then we can ask the question of, rather than why does Joanne say yes, like you asked, why does Watkins keep wanting to meet up with Joanne? It's not like he's short of women. And she says herself in the interview that he would tell her,

I can't believe I keep wanting to see you and keep wanting to like meet up with you when you keep trying to send me to prison. But on one such meeting, soon after he was released on bail, Watkins and Joanne met at a hotel in London. She said that the first thing he said to her that night was, quote, I've got a two-year-old to rape on Monday. It's a super fans kid. Immediately, that's the first thing he says to her. And he knows she's going to the police. Like, it's completely unbelievable. I don't understand. So Joanne says that she also

saw an email in Watkins' inbox from a woman whose name she recognized. It was Woman B, the woman that Joanne had tried to get to report Watkins in Doncaster, but who had never shown up. And after seeing the emails, Joanne messaged Woman B and said, quote, still don't get how you go from seeming to be on my side months ago when I was talking to police to then abusing your child and offering her to Ian. How the hell did that start? That's what I don't get. How did you bring that up with him? And this is the kind of thing like there is proof that Joanne Majelix sent this message to woman B. So we know, we can say without a shadow of a doubt, even if you wonder why Joanne Majelix

behaves weirdly in this case, she wasn't involved in the abuse. She is like yelling at this woman why she is doing this. So I guess, yeah, you have to believe that her intentions are good. Maybe she's just not going about it in totally the best way. So Joanne, after this encounter, then went to Bedfordshire Police and Children's Services. She spoke to someone there in their child protection service and told them everything. In November 2012, so just three weeks later, Watkins was arrested again in Pontypridd on suspicion of producing an obscene article. But again, he was released on bail and he went to go and meet up with the Lost Prophets who were on

tour around the UK at the time. They must have known, the rest of the band. They absolutely must have known. I don't see how you can tour with a person who's doing that sort of stuff and not know. It's really hard because so many people went for the band after this all came out, saying, you must have known, you must have known. They released a statement being like, we're absolutely heartbroken. We had no idea that he did any of this. We had absolutely no clue.

I just don't know. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I don't know if they knew that he was so depraved and so fucked up and they were like, he's the front man. We need him. Because they've like formed a band after this and it's like gone absolutely nowhere. Or whether they were like just as surprised as everyone. I think they probably knew that he was like taking loads of drugs, taking drugs with underage fans and having sex with underage fans. But I don't think they knew knew that he was like taking loads of drugs taking drugs with underage fans and having sex with underage fans but i don't think they knew about the like child and baby stuff it's like that story there's a really famous story of when blondie go on their first u.s tour and they get on the plane and their manager says to the whole band he's like every single one of you is replaceable apart from Debbie Harry and don't you forget it that's

the truth you can't swap out the front man it's a different story with something like the sugar babes where you can sort of swap the entire band you can't swap out the front man you just can't do it I think that the band probably looked the other way on a lot of things because it was relatively well known especially you know what we said at the start of the show about like it being quite well known on the lost profits like fan forums that he like slept with they're like fans and he would sleep with like girls who were like 14 to 16 that's not cool like he's like 30 by the time they get big but i think the band just looked the other way and they were just like it's not really rape like it's fine they love him like whatever we need him but i don't think that they knew the full extent of what was going on.

Ian Watkins gave his last performance in Newport on the 14th of November 2012 because finally police had called in the help of GCHQ to access the encrypted files on Watkins's computer and guess what? This is absolutely staggering. They found that one of the passwords that Ian Watkins used was ifuckkids and it's spelt like I-F-U-K-K-I-D-Z. He's laughing at it. He's making a joke about it. Yeah. And I don't think we need to tell you the kind of images that they found on the computer, but we'll tell you how many. They found 90 child abuse images, 24 of which fell into the most severe category. The children in the images were between 2 and 14 years old. He also possessed 22 separate bestiality images, including oral and vaginal sex with dogs. Leave the dogs alone. It's like he's trying to push the boundaries of like fucked up-ness as far as he possibly can. That's exactly what I was going to say. He is trying to go as far as he possibly can in like the fucked up Olympics. Exactly. That's exactly it.

He's insatiable when it comes to depravity. That's the feeling I get from him is like that he's just got this endless hunger for the most sick and depraved things that he can think about and that he can do. On December 17th, 2012, Watkins was arrested for the third time, along with two women, Woman A and Woman B, who we heard from earlier. At first, Watkins denied any wrongdoing, claiming that he had been framed by jealous groupies. That's a bit of a misnomer, a jealous groupie. Exactly. What does that even mean? Why would your groupie be jealous of you and why would they frame you for being a baby rapist?

If they like you. Doesn't make sense. Watkins wouldn't change his plea until the last moment, just before his trial was due to start. At which point, he admitted to all 13 counts of child sex offences, including two counts of attempting to penetratively rape a baby. And if anyone is thinking that he did this to spare the families a long, drawn-out and graphic trial, you'd be wrong. This man has never, ever shown any remorse for his actions. And to come back to your point, Hannah, that he's just laughing at all of this, he is.

That is the total vibe with Ian Watkins, that this is just laughing at all of this? He is. That is the total vibe with Ian Watkins that this is just a big joke to him. Because the day after admitting attempted baby rape, Ian Watkins spoke to a female fan from prison and said that he was going to issue a statement when he was sentenced saying that it had all been, quote, mega lols. Because mega lols, as if it's not, this is like so like of their time. This is like an early 2000s band, right? Their merch had mega lols written all over it. A screen they performed in front of at like Reading Festival just had the words mega lols written on it. And if you've never been to Reading Festival, that is Reading Festival in a fucking nutshell.

Just imagine yourself covered in mud and shit, looking at a band like the Lost Prophets playing in front of a sign that says mega lols on it just a total screenshot of the early 2000s i think like that's how you encapsulate the early noughties with crimp oh i love the crimp i found some excellent pictures of me at a spice girls concert which i will share on the facebook group because they are pretty special outstanding so he's basically telling this girl, still the fact that a female fan is like talking to him when he has been arrested is currently on trial for 13 counts of child sex offences is like, just unbelievable. He's also so fucking stupid because he makes this call from prison. They obviously record the call and the transcript was read aloud at his trial the very fucking next day.

I don't understand. Is he that stupid or does he just not care? I think he genuinely thinks that even though he's on trial and he's literally in prison, he still thinks he's going to get away with it because he's Ian Watkins. I think that's all it is. Yeah. And possibly in the same way he's like pushing the envelope with the porn he's watching, he's trying to push the envelope with this as well and be like,

how outrageous can I be and still get away with it? i think he just had a massive hard-on for like all the headlines about him even though it was for the most depraved thing you could possibly think of so when they read this transcript aloud in court the next day it was met by stunned silence as you can only imagine because he told this female fan that he spoke to who was only ever referred to as a 27 year old woman named Samantha quote I'm gonna put a statement out on the 18th just to say it was mega lols I do not know what everybody is getting so freaked out about Watkins also explained in the conversation that he was faced with the choice before pleading guilty quote it was like either I go up there and say come on it's it's not that bad, nobody got hurt,

or I try win them over with my charm and end up saying I was off my head and don't remember anything. Oh, I just thought, do you think he started taking all those drugs and getting smashed all the time so publicly so if he ever did get caught, he could just say it was that? Oh, maybe. But of course, whichever of these two tactics he would have employed, whatever he did do, I think it was like a combination of both. He basically tries both of them. None of this worked because what came out during this trial is truly stomach churning. And I know we already gave a word of warning, but another word of warning at this point

that what we're about to tell you isn't easy listening. In March 2007, Watkins met a 16-year-old girl referred to only ever in court as Titi. He got her to dress up as a schoolgirl. I mean, I read that, but I was like, she is still a schoolgirl. So he just got her to wear her school uniform, put on her school uniform. And he videoed her as they had oral, vaginal, and anal sex. She was a virgin. Oh, God.

Let's just let that sink in. He also spends the entire video of them having sex calling her a slut. And then he urinated on her face and told her to drink it. She was a 16-year-old virgin and he was a 30-year-old man. Offences pertaining to Woman B became even more depraved. And the judge, Justice Royce, doesn't hold back while sentencing her. This is what he said. You were being manipulated by Watkins. That may be obvious but you were a mother. Your infant was only 10 months old. A mother loves, protects, shields, nurtures and cherishes but you, you had

detailed discussions with Watkins about the sexual acts to which the two of you were going to subject your infant. Woman B admitted to meeting up with Watkins at the Cockthorn Hotel in Cardiff in March 2012. Watkins had texted Woman B saying, come down this weekend and we can fuck him up again. To which she replied, tell me if you want to get your dick in our boy. And then this was followed by another weekend at K West Hotel in London in April, where Woman B and Watkins videoed him attempting to rape her son.

In the video, Woman B is not only seen and heard encouraging what is happening, but she's actively taking part. He's 11 months old. And then there are just reams and reams of messages between the two of explicit sexual descriptions. And there are also countless images generated by woman B of her sexually abusing her son and sending the images to Ian Watkins. Now, woman A started talking to Watkins in August 2012. She had a young daughter and in their discussions, it wasn't long before the chat turned to child sex abuse. Watkins wrote to her saying,

I can't, and we don't really want want to go into the full details of everything these people discussed and the things that they share. You can easily find Ian Watkins' full sentencing report out there if you want to. It's like 13 pages of hell. I read it. I found it on Reddit and I was like, everybody's comments on the page that I found it on was like, this is horrific. This is the worst thing I've read. And I was like, I've read some pretty bad shit. Let me have a look. Oh my God. Like I can't say, I like can't say the things that are written in that sentencing report. I'm not going to post it on social media, but you can find it if you want to. And you know that with our cases, we don't usually shy away from saying what happened. Like we said at the start, if it's important enough

and it puts the crime into context, puts everything into context, it's important that we talk about it. But we kind of felt like digging deeper into the details in this case just feels like reading out child pornography. You get it by now how fucked up this all is. You don't need us to go any further into what was done. Now, of course, before sentencing, defence counsel for woman B, Christine Lang QC, told the court that her client had been quote, a very immature young woman, suffering from an undiagnosed personality disorder and postnatal depression, and that Watkins had flattered her and promised her a life that she could only have dreamt of. Barrister for woman A, Jonathan Fuller QC, meanwhile described

how his client had been just 17 years old when she had met Watkins, a man almost twice her age, who had, quote, darkened her world with drugs and even injected her with heroin. At the end of the painful trial, 36-year-old Ian Watkins was sentenced to 35 years, but he will be eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of that prison term. Women A and Women B were sentenced to 14 and 17 years, respectively. Following this case, there were multiple questions raised about how this can have been allowed to happen, especially given that South Wales Police had known about Watkins for four years before his arrest. So an investigation was launched by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The big question that the investigation set out to answer was how Watkins had managed to get away with his crimes for so long.

While it had been suggested that Watkins' fame had acted as a shield, in fact, the IPCC investigation found that, this is a quote, there was no evidence to show that police inaction was the result of Watkins' celebrity. Bollocks. How would you even prove that? There was no evidence to show that police inaction was a result of Watkins' celebrity. Unless they went through all of these detectives' Spotify accounts and were like, oh, they love the Lost Prophets and that must be why they didn't do anything. How could you prove or disprove that that inaction was not down to his status as a

celebrity? And I don't fucking believe it. Of course it was. So according to Jan Williams, the ICPCC Commissioner for Wales, the report found disturbing concerns about the way in which reports of Ian Watkins' sickening child abuse was handled. Well, no fucking duh, Jan. That's all you found. This is just the total typical thing of like, there's public outrage. Let's just have a bit of an inquiry. And then we'll just be like, here's a massive report none of you normal people will ever read. And we just move on. Like, that's what they want to happen, I feel like.

Because what they said they found, instead of this whole thing being about ian watkins celebrity was that quote and to be fair i do kind of believe this was that quote the initial police investigation of majelic's credibility impacted negatively on the police response over the four-year period that makes sense like i do buy that. The report added that, quote, all those involved in responding accepted the initial sceptical view of Miss Majelic's report, demonstrating a lack of open-mindedness and professional curiosity. This continued until, quote,

the right type of complainant came along. Because remember, Joanne Majelic was a sex worker. Yeah, I really think they thought like oh here she is like she's been dumped by her famous boyfriend and she's out to destroy him it's like any case like the case with um bradford and rotherham like child sex abuse gangs like when those girls went forward and said what happened to them they were just like they're not the right type of witnesses that's a quote from that what the the fuck? But the thing is, apart from finding that this was the problem, they also were damning.

Because the IPCC investigation highlighted the fact that when Miss Majelix first reported Watkins to the police, she had a text message on her phone that Watkins had sent her in August of 2007. And the message explicitly said that he wanted to have sex with children. But the police failed to look at her phone. And I kind with children, but the police failed to look at her phone. And I kind of think even saying that they failed to look at her phone is putting it too softly. She was like, look at my phone, and they were like, no, no thanks.

Yeah, they refused to look at the evidence. Exactly. This is always the typical sort of findings that they find in any sort of serious case review or like IPCC inquiry. But it does feel like this report's damning conclusions should be a wake up call for those involved and for anybody who works on cases like this. Because the fact that a simple unchecked mobile phone could have helped them prevent further abuse by Ian Watkins is frankly unbelievable. But it is just one cause for significant concern amongst this catalogue of basic failures in this case.

In some ways, it's most damning the IPCC investigation found that Ian Watkins was not given special treatment by the police because he was a celebrity. They say that he didn't get away with it for so long because he was famous, but because the women who spoke up against him simply weren't believed. They can say that, but according to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, between 2008 and 2012, South Wales police were presented with eight reports and three intelligence logs by six different people who all raised concerns over Watkins' intentions. However, the force failed to adequately respond to the accusations. And yes, the police didn't believe any of the women who came forward.

But then they had reports coming from other police departments as well, including the London Metropolitan Police, and they ignored those as well. And remember what the father of the girl in the cocaine picture said. He had been told not to pursue the issue because it would ruin Watkins' career. So it's not really to do with the women, is it? They have reports from other police departments and they're not doing anything about it. So it's absolutely because he's famous. The end. Exactly. And also the fact that if the father is to be believed, he came forward and was told, don't do this because it will ruin his career. So how are you saying that it had absolutely nothing to do with the

fact that he was a celebrity? The thing is, like we alluded to earlier, Pontypridd is a tiny town. It's only got the same population as the town I grew up in. And like we call this town like a weird seaside town without the seaside. It's not very many people. And I think there is definitely a vibe of like small town, valley boy done in the town i grew up in letchworth the town next to us stevenage was where lewis hamilton is from oh and he called it a dump didn't he or something really recently and everyone got really upset because he's like hometown hero not to me pay your fucking taxes hamilton but um he's like you know big hometown boy like hero all this and it's just like yeah i could totally imagine if he came back here and did something totally fucked up, the police would just be like, off you go.

Don't worry about it. Off you go. Oh, for sure. He's had heaps of speeding tickets and stuff that he just gets away with. Exactly. They'll just be like, oh, I got Lewis Hamilton speeding. Off you go. So just like making that like for like comparison about like the pride that a small town puts in a hero, unquote like that I totally get this and also remember with Ian Watkins he wasn't like Lewis Hamilton that he just fucked off and then called his hometown a dump Ian Watkins was heavily involved in the community back home he like was you know what was he was like the kidney ambassador and he's like doing the valley's renovation scheme that the government are running. Like,

I can definitely see people trying to protect the town's golden boy. Just my opinion, but I think so. Oh, I think you're right. And also with Ian Watkins, just because he's in prison, don't think for a second that he's done because he's not. Because in 2017, a child was taken into care after Ian Watkins was found to be grooming his mother from inside prison. Watkins is said to have been writing to the 21-year-old single mother from Lincolnshire from his high-security prison cell in Wakefield, the Monster Mansion. With Maudsley, with the most dangerous prisoner in Britain. He's in there, in his Perspex box.

Yeah, like Broadmoor and Wakefield. They are the two most terrifying prisons, surely, in Britain. From inside Wakefield, he is grooming a 21-year-old mother. He's un-fucking-stoppable. Now, the mother in question had been a fan of Lost Prophets since she was 16 and visited Watkins in prison after receiving letters in 2016 in which he claimed that he loved her. Oh my God.

And it's also alleged that Watkins made jokes about her two-year-old watching her have sex. So after all this was found out and the police found the messages, the letters, etc., her daughter was taken into care that December. But the woman has continued to see Watkins and in March 2017, even bought herself an engagement ring at his suggestion. To end on another horrible note, in 2017 Detective Sergeant Andrew Whelan was cleared of misconduct in the Ian Watkins case. Doesn't get much worse than that, does it? No, and it's really infuriating the way that they let him off and clear him of misconduct. They just say that he is an incredibly hardworking police officer and that he works overtime all the time.

And it was because he was so overworked that he made this mistake. That's the case of Ian Watkins. And now we never have to think about it ever again. I had the hottest shower after this. Just scrubbing myself down. Scrubbing yourself with wire wool. Exactly. So go do that. But before you do that, you might want to take a very quick second to come follow us at Red Handed The Pod on Instagram, on Twitter. Also come join the Facebook group. And if you'd like to go that one step further, you can do so by helping to support

the show on patreon.com slash red handed and here are some lovely people who have done so this week emily reed lacey maxwell kristin ama apple kira whiteley anti cullen rita val oh god rita valley jarvie jarvie sorry rita sherry v nixon sarah person so oh we had ellen person last time didn't we? Are you sisters? Megan Han Solo. A lot of sisters listen to our show, though. I know, I'm really into it. Jessica Burgess, Adriana Rich, Deborah Capus Cassidy, Dominique McDaniel, Jordan, Rachel Brown, Zoe Hart, Lane Allen, Elizabeth Langdon, Heather Baldwin, Sarah Bernardo, Nicole Thede, Georgia Reynolds, Jennifer Doyle, Ashley Elizabeth Bleggy,

Lindsay Waltman, Travis Crocker, Stacey Balms, Lee Gokey, Anne Jensen, Laura Jones, Katie Dahlstrom, Elise Bateman, Daniel with a Y, Amy Carroll, Natalie Flores, and Nicole Johnson. Thank you so much, guys. Only one correction. I think it's Lauren Jones, not Laura Jones, just in case she spots that. Oh, Lauren Jones. Sorry. I was speed reading. That was a lot of people. Well done. You did it. And well done, you guys, because that's just incredibly helpful. Thank you so much. And yeah, I don't really know what else to say. I feel a bit

overwhelmed by the end of that case. So thank you for listening. We hope you're okay. Don't go read the sentencing report. Don't read anything more about him. This is all the information you need to know. So go do something else. Go watch Bob's Burgers. That's a great show or something. We'll see you next week. Yeah. Bye, guys. Bye. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud.

In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest

season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained.

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