The paedophile rock star was serving a 29-year sentence for child sex offences.<\/p>\n
He was attacked with a knife on Saturday morning, sources have confirmed.<\/p>\n
Emergency services were sent to the prison in West Yorkshire but Watkins was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n
Two men, aged 25 and 43, have been arrested and are in police custody, police said.<\/p>\n
The prison went into lockdown in the immediate aftermath of the incident, sources added.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police said: \u201cDetectives have launched a murder investigation after the death of a man in HMP Wakefield.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers were called by staff at the prison at 9.39am this morning to reports of a serious assault on a prisoner.<\/p>\n
\u201cA man aged 48 was found with serious injuries. Despite medical attention he was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo men aged 25 and 43 have been arrested on suspicion of murder and are currently in police custody.<\/p>\n
\u201cDetectives from the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team are investigating and inquiries remain ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watkins, 48, was jailed for 29 years in December 2013 with a further six years on licence, after admitting a string of sex offences \u2013 including the attempted rape of a fan\u2019s baby.<\/p>\n
The disgraced singer was arrested following the execution of a drugs warrant at his Pontypridd home on September 21 2012 when a large number of computers, mobile phones and storage devices were seized.<\/p>\n
Analysis of the equipment uncovered Watkins\u2019 depraved behaviour.<\/p>\n
A Prison Service spokesperson said: \u201cWe are aware of an incident at HMP Wakefield which took place this morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are unable to comment further while the police investigate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watkins was previously taken to hospital after being attacked in 2023.<\/p>\n
At the time, police said his injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.<\/p>\n
A source told the Mirror he had been taken hostage by three other inmates.<\/p>\n
And in 2019 he was jailed for 10 months on top of the sentence he was serving for child sex offences after he was found guilty of possessing a mobile phone in prison.<\/p>\n
Watkins claimed two inmates forced him to hold on to the phone so they could contact women who sent him fan mail in order to use them as a \u201crevenue stream\u201d.<\/p>\n
In his evidence, the defendant refused to name the men, but said: \u201cYou would not want to mess with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said his fellow inmates were \u201cmurderers, mass murderers, rapists, paedophiles, serial killers \u2013 the worst of the worst\u201d.<\/p>\n
Judge Rodney Jameson KC said he did not accept Watkins had the phone, which was in his possession for five days, because he had been threatened.<\/p>\n
During the five-day trial at Leeds Crown Court, the jury heard Watkins was strip-searched in the jail in March 2018 and then produced a small phone from his body after he became concerned that he would not be able to see his mother who was visiting from Wales.<\/p>\n
In 2014 Watkins was told he could not appeal against the length of his 29-year jail term.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for Watkins claimed he should have his jail term cut because his last-minute guilty plea spared a jury from having to watch his home-made child pornography.<\/p>\n
However the Court of Appeal, sitting in Cardiff, turned down his application for leave for an appeal, with presiding judge Lord Justice Pitchford saying: \u201cThese were offences against infant children of such shocking depravity that a very lengthy sentence of imprisonment was demanded.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not demonstrated the total sentence of 29 years together with the extended licence period was arguably manifestly excessive. Accordingly, the application in his case is refused.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the disturbing videos due to be shown at his trial included his attempted rape of a baby and a webcam chat in which he instructed a crazed fan to abuse her child.<\/p>\n
Watkins was given 14- and 15-year consecutive prison terms for engaging in sexual activity with a child and the attempted rape of an 11-month-old baby.<\/p>\n
He was also convicted of 11 other offences \u2013 with those sentences running alongside his 29-year term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The paedophile rock star was serving a 29-year sentence for child sex offences. He was attacked with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,898],"class_list":{"0":"post-75612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-latest-news-ticker"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}