Chilling reasons Ian Watkins escaped justice as ex-girlfriend says 'four years too late'

Lostprophets paedophileIan Watkinsbegan his sentence in 2013, but his horrific crimes came to light years earlier, with his ex-girlfriend claiming that his arrest was "four years too late".

Unbeknownst to his Lostprophets bandmates and unsuspecting fans, many of whom were teenagers, Watkins was a drug-addled predatory paedophile. He preyed on his "superfans", primarily young, vulnerable mothers with newborn babies.

In 2013, the Welsh performer pleaded guilty at Cardiff Crown Court to 13 child sex offences. He also admitted to the rape and sexual assault of a child who was under the age of 13.

Watkins also admitted conspiring to rape a child, three counts of sexual assault involving children, seven involving taking, making or possessing indecent images of children and one of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving a sex act on an animal. In total, Watkins was serving a 29-year prison sentence after admitting to 13 sex offences, including two attempts to rape a baby.

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He was being held in HMP Wakefield, one of the UK's most notorious jails, when he reportedly had his throat slashed at the weekend. Following his sudden death, the Mirror has looked back on why the paedophile was not brought to justice sooner than 2013.

It was previously reported that police missed various opportunities over the course of four years to stop Watkins and his horrific crimes. According to a report from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), six people made allegations against Watkins before he was finally arrested in 2012.

In addition, Watkins' ex-girlfriend, Joanna Majic, said she warned police repeatedly for four years after he confessed to her he was a paedophile. The former call girl had an on-off relationship with Watkins from 2006 after the rocker sought her out to indulge his sexual fantasies.

She insists he never paid her for sex and they became a couple, butshe became disgusted by his increasingly dark sexual appetite and was finally horrified when he told her he wanted to have sex with children. She previously told the Mirror: "Everything changed for us when he confided in me that he wanted to abuse children in 2008.

"I went straight to South Wales police then and made a complaint, but they ignored me and said I needed evidence.

"I warned them this man was a danger to young kids, but I think they thought I was just a troublemaker.

"I couldn't believe how indifferent the police were, it was like they were taking his side and dismissing me as some stalker.

"I told Ian I had gone to the police and we argued but he was so cocky, he did not think the police would touch him and he was right."

Joanne explained how Watkins would chillingly boast to her about using his fame and glamour to prey on his army of impressionable young fans. She also revealed how Watkins enjoyed turning them into what he shockingly called 'Superfans' - women prepared to offer their own children up for sex.

Furthermore, she disclosed how Watkins intentionally targeted his own fans. She said: "He targeted them deliberately because they were easy prey to him.

"Somehow, I have no idea how, he managed to persuade them to let them offer up their own kids to be abused.

"He sucked them in with his charm like he did all the girls but by 2012 I knew he was out of control.

"His arrest was four years too late for me. I wonder how many other victims there are out there because from what I knew of Ian Watkins I'd be shocked if he only tried this with two women."

In part of the IPCC investigation report into his delayed arrest, it read: "The consequence of the force’s failings was arguably that a predatory paedophile offended over an extended period of time. The evidence obtained in this investigation suggests that South Wales police were faced with a litany of reports about his behaviour, yet in some instances did not carry out even rudimentary investigation, made errors and omissions and missed opportunities to bring him to justice earlier than he ultimately was."

The IPCC commissioner for Wales, Jan Williams, said: "This investigation raised the most disturbing concerns about the way in which reports of Ian Watkins’s sickening child abuse were handled between 2008 and 2012. Watkins’s arrest for his depraved activities followed only after an arrest for drugs offences."