Lead singer of rock band Lostprophets, Ian Watkins has pleaded guilty to multiple child sex offences, including one of the attempted rape of a baby.
Ian Watkins pleaded guilty to the sex charges in Cardiff Crown Court in Wales yesterday, November 26th, 2013 (Tuesday) as reported by BBC. The frontman of the Welsh rock band admitted to the attempted rape and sexual assaults of a child under 13 years of age, three counts of sexual assaults involving children and six involving taking, making or possessing offensive pictures of children and one of possessing a severely phonographic picture involving a sex act on an animal.
Apart from 36 six year old Ian, two female co-suspects pleaded guilty to various sex offences against their own children as reported by the South Wales Evening Post. Ian also admitted to attempting to rape a 11-month-old- baby boy of one of the co-suspects and conspiring to rape the baby girl of the other.
“Ian Watkins was the lead singer of a successful band, The Lostprophets,” prosecutor Christopher Clee said on Wales Online. “He also, by virtue of his plea, accepts he is a determined and committed pedophile. He has engaged in serious sexual offences against two babies belonging to the female defendants in this case. Not only has he done so but he recorded and kept episodes of this abuse which were recovered by the police.”
Clee followed by saying that drugs played a significant part in his offending against children.
“This investigation has uncovered the most shocking and harrowing child abuse evidence I have ever seen,” DCI Peter Doyle, with the South Wales Police, told reporters outside the court. “There is no doubt in my mind that Ian Watkins exploited his celebrity status in order to abuse young children.”
According to U.K’s Daily Star, the Rooftops singer denied the 24 charges against him prior to this. His trial was slated to drag out for three weeks as he and the two women faced a total of 32 charges.
Lostprophets is a welsh rock band that was originally formed in 1997. The band went on to sell 3.5 million albums over the their 15-year career. The group disbanded in October and frontman Ian was charged with the child sex offences almost a year ago.
Ian and the two female offenders are to remain in custody and will be sentenced in December.
(Source)
