Lostprophets guitarist speaks out about band's 'painful' end - 13 years after shamed singer Ian Watkins was jailed for vile child sex abuse crimes
Lee Gaze, 50, said the band's downfall was the 'ultimate punishment' and could not understand how it could happen to him as he felt he had 'never really wronged anyone in my whole life'.
The shamed former frontman was jailed for 35 years in 2013 for 13 offences against children, including the attempted rape of an 11-month-old baby.
The pedophile also admitted to 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.
Watkins changed his plea at the start of his trial but claimed he could not remember the 'depraved' abuse because he was high on crystal meth.
But Gaze revealed that the 'unimaginable circumstances' of how his band ended was often a topic he avoided.
The musician wrote on X: 'It's been 13 years since my band ended in the most unimaginable circumstances and it's still painful to think about.
'Things could've been so different.
'I don't talk about it much but I put everything into that band and it should've lasted a lifetime.
'I never really wronged anyone my whole life so it seemed like the ultimate punishment.'
Beloved fans rushed to consolidate the heartbroken guitarist, with one replying: 'I'm really sorry you're still carrying that pain. Everything should have been different. But fate is a cruel joke… You didn't deserve it. I think a lot about what the band would be like now.'
Matt Clark wrote: 'Eternally gutted for you guys. LP were one of my formative bands in my teens and saw you guys over 20 times.
'If you all decided to re-record all your material with a new singer I'd support that! Reclaim something that one person should have no right to send to oblivion.'
Matt O'Grady said: 'I always say to any band I record if LP comes up in convo, what that guy did was unspeakably evil, but I've got so much sympathy for everyone else in that (your) band, he ruined many other people's lives and careers instantly, and it's never spoken about.'
One fan, Julian, said: 'Start Something was (and still is) such an important album to me, it's such a shame the band will be remembered for one vile persons actions and not the music.
'Those tunes should be staples of alternative club nights across the country.'
The pedophile admitted to 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
Another added: 'The band was so key in my formative years and I loved every single song. Shinobi is still one of my all timers. Heartbreaking circumstances in which things ended, his actions should never define the band or the rest of you. Could you gather the lads and form something else?'
Since Watkins's 35-year term was handed down, he has had an extra 10 months added to the sentence due to possession of a mobile phone.
At a hearing for that offence, he told how he was locked up with 'the worst of the worst' and said someone could 'sneak up behind me and cut my throat'.
And in August 2023, the vile creep was left in a critical condition in hospital after three 'heavy-duty' prisoners took him hostage for six hours and stabbed him in the neck in a targeted attack.
Officers at the prison had to wait for an armed 'Tornado' team of specially-trained riot officers to break up the hostage situation that lasted six hours, the Sun reported.
The officers hurled stun grenades into the cell in order to free Watkins - who visitors say still 'prances around like a star' behind bars - from the other inmates after they stormed the wing.
The pedophile was described as 'screaming' and in fear of his life as he was taken, with the entire West Yorkshire prison wing swiftly put on lockdown.
Sources claimed at the time the group of three responsible - two of which are believed to be 'killers' - were 'recent arrivals' to the Category A prison and had planned the attack, which is thought to be in anger over him giving guitar lessons to other inmates, to take place on a day where there were fewer staff working.
Describing the moment Watkins was taken hostage at the prison (pictured, stock image), a source said the paedophile as 'screaming' and in 'fear of his life'
The singer - a former boyfriend of BBC radio and television presenter Fearne Cotton - pleaded guilty to sex offences involving the children of two female fans, who were sentenced to 14 and 17 years in prison for allowing the offences to take place.
Prosecutor QC Chris Clee told Cardiff Crown Court in 2013: 'Ian Watkins was the lead singer of a successful band called the Lostprophets.
'He was also a determined and committed paedophile engaged in serious sex offences involving of two babies.'
Mr Clee also gave details of a sickening 17-minute video involving Watkins and one of the baby's mother.
He said camcorder footage was shot in a London hotel room which showed Watkins performing a sex act on the child.
Sentencing Watkins, Mr Justice Royce said the case broke 'new ground' and his actions 'plunged into new depths of depravity'.
His ex-bandmates had previously spoken about Watkins soon after he was jailed, insisting that if they really knew who their bandmate was they 'would have killed him'.
Lee Gaze, Mike Lewis, Stuart Richardson, Jamie Oliver and Luke Johnson, who are all from Pontypridd, south Wales, said they had no idea about the vocalist's paedophile ways.
Guitarist Gaze said: 'How could you know?
'Who would disclose such a thing to five people, who between them have eight children? You just wouldn't because they would be killed on the spot.'
Speaking to Radio 1's newsbeat in 2014, he said the band members were hit by two waves of shock – firstly when Watkins was arrested in December 2012 and a year later when he finally pleaded guilty.
He said: 'There was two sets of shock because there were the accusations - which was one thing. And then there was the actual, 'Yeah I did do it' which was a year later.
'He dragged that out for a year, so we got hit by it twice.'
His former bandmates were trying at the time to move forward with their new band No Devotion, with the help of singer Geoff Rickly who they enlisted as their vocalist.
Bassist Stuart Richardson added: 'Even though I was completely done with him (by this stage), I hoped it was all a mistake, he was innocent, he had to be.
'The first time, we knew the band was done. You can't go back from that.'
Towards the end of Lostprophets, Gaze said that Watkins had become increasingly distant from the band.
'He was doing his own thing,' he said.
'That just grew worse over the years, the more he was using drugs.
'He could be in the same city as me and I wouldn't hang out with him, even if we weren't playing shows.'
Lostprophets entered the rock scene in 2000 with their debut album TheFakeSoundofProgress. A major label deal soon followed and saw the band's second album Start Something become a commercial success in 2002 both at home in the UK and the US.
However, cracks in Watkins's life soon started to appear - with rumours emerging of him being a sex-crazed drug addict who regularly conducted seedy online sex chats with young fans.
He has also previously faced multiple allegations of inappropriate messages and sex with underage girls.
Watkins initially denied his sickening crimes and claimed he was being framed to look like a paedophile after police found incriminating footage.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
13 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
If you still think men should be allowed to work in childcare, you won't by the time you've finished reading LOUISE EDMONDS' harrowing story
I was four years old when my childhood ended. Between the ages of four and nine, I was repeatedly sexually abused. I survived, but only just. What was taken from me wasn't just innocence; it was safety, self-worth, trust and the freedom to grow without fear.
The Guardian
19 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘How can I find meaning from the ruins of my life?': the little magazine with a life-changing impact
One morning in February last year, I received an urgent call from the journalist Paul Burston, alerting me to alarming recent social media posts by a mutual friend, the poet and former model Max Wallis. It seemed he had left his London flat in deep distress and was headed to a bridge. Our best guess was the Millennium footbridge by St Paul's Cathedral. Then we heard that Max might have taken refuge inside the cathedral. While I scanned gaggles of tourists in the nave, he was intercepted and removed by ambulance. I was relieved to get a message later that evening that he was safe. We'd met more than a decade before at an event on the South Bank for the Polari prize, set up by Burston to showcase new LGBTQ+ writers. I and the other judges had shortlisted Wallis's collection Modern Love. Though the eventual winner was John McCullough, we stayed in touch, going on regular excursions: to Wilderness festival, to readings, to a rooftop art installation in Shoreditch. And always talking about poetry – writing it, reading it, thinking about it, critiquing it. Now, he tells me about the poetry magazine that emerged from the dark period of addiction that followed his early success. 'I lost 12 years of my life, maybe more,' he says over a video call. 'The magazine came about from me saying: 'I have to do something this year; my brain is on fire and it's running like a hamster wheel.' I wanted to corral the chaos: how can I find meaning from the ruins of my life?' After his breakdown, he retreated home to Lancashire. 'I had moved in with a friend because I messaged my parents before I went into hospital, saying never talk to me ever again. Instead they opened their arms. My parents were just phenomenal.' The first imperative was to become clean and sober. He was diagnosed with ADHD and complex PTSD, and gradually rebuilt his life: the first trip into town, getting on a train, taking a driving lesson. But during this period he also rediscovered his craft, channelling his trauma into a memoir and new poems. 'I was a poet all this time but I'd forgotten, essentially. I'm 35 but I almost feel like I'm 21. I have had to learn everything again. In order to be sober, and to get better from PTSD, you sit with the awful emotions that you feel, and you don't drink or take drugs; you get through the day and move on.' He started submitting to magazines, but since the new work was themed around breakdown and recovery, Wallis thought only a few poems would get published. With energy to spare (at least on the good days), he began to imagine what a space specifically for trauma poetry could look like. If poetry saved his life, perhaps it could help others. The idea of The Aftershock Review was born. A poet friend, Anna Percy, had experience of publishing poetry zines in the lively Manchester scene. 'No disrespect to those,' Wallis says. 'I love zines, but I was thinking bigger, nationwide, book-sized.' Rather than photocopying, he started researching printers. Percy and I joined the magazine as contributing editors and sounding boards, and Wallis put the word out for submissions. Work poured in: from poets who were disabled, disadvantaged, ill, excluded in various ways. The reference anthology was Al Alvarez's electrifying The New Poetry, which launched Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton to an enthralled readership; Bloodaxe's Staying Alive series was also hugely admired. 'It's not a pity project,' Wallis insists, calling it 'literature forged from survival'. Established poets were eager to submit, alongside rising stars and unknown writers. Inua Ellams's 'Fuck' poems meld rage, wit and social commentary; Rhian Elizabeth's Amsterdam states baldly 'girl loses her father, girl loses her mind'; Golnoosh Nour's Burnt Divinities celebrates her heritage: 'the glorious / mixture of glitter and garbage'. The Faber poet and Spectator poetry editor Hugo Williams contributed a sardonic and atypical piece, The Art Scene, which mocks glib responses to trauma in contemporary art. 'Max called me up and we had this instant connection,' Williams says. 'He seemed different from the average literary type. This kind of writing seems to me to be improvised on the spot and kept like that. People of my generation work so hard to make it perfect, and you wish they wouldn't!' Aftershock, he observes, represents a jolt to the mainstream. Contributor Pascale Petit agrees, calling it 'a raft to all of us suffering trauma in troubling times. Poetry this open is necessary, and I don't think any other magazine has dared to address our personal ills so candidly.' Gwyneth Lewis, a former national poet of Wales, points out that for ages raw, confessional poetry was looked down on as 'feminine': 'I'm coming out of a long period of reckoning with lifelong maternal emotional abuse and then chronic illness. I find it deeply encouraging [to realise] that I was in the darkness with so many brilliant poets.' In the few months of its existence, Aftershock has made an impact – with sales over £3,000, and 360,000 views on Instagram. A giant billboard on Manchester's Deansgate is seen by thousands daily, and much more is planned for the Aftershock universe: further issues, poetry pamphlets, outreach, events. Perhaps what's so exciting is that it has tapped into the huge energy and enthusiasm for poetry felt by young writers and readers, who recognise it can be a comfort and release. 'Aftershock has given me everything,' Wallis says. 'It's proof that you can take an awful few years and make them into potentially the most astonishing year. Having not wanted to live at all … what it is to choose life over and over again. It's incredible.' The Aftershock Review issue one (£12.99) is available from In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
The Independent
42 minutes ago
- The Independent
Evil will not define Southport a year on from attack, deputy council leader says
The people of Southport will not 'allow evil to define' them, a year on from a knife attack on a children's dance class. Tuesday marks one year since Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time, entered the Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Hart Street and fatally injured Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven. In the days following the attack, during which he also attempted to kill eight other children and two adults, violent disorder broke out in the seaside town and across the country. Deputy leader of Sefton Council Paulette Lappin said now the community was looking to move forward in a positive way. She told the PA news agency: 'It still remains beyond belief, even though I know it to be true, and so it's just very sad. 'From sadness, we hope to bring goodness and that's all we can do.' This summer the area outside Southport Town Hall, where hundreds laid floral tributes and a vigil was held last year, is again filled with colourful flowers. The flowers are now in planters which have been put in place ahead of its transformation into legacy gardens, in memory of those who lost their lives in the attack. Councillor Lappin said: 'It will be designed for the enjoyment and the fun of children, so that all children can come and they can all play in here. 'That's what we have to remember, that it is an absolutely terrible tragedy, but we cannot allow evil to define us.' A new playground is also being built at Churchtown Primary School, in memory of Alice and Bebe, who were both pupils. On the anniversary, members of the public are being asked not to lay flowers but to consider making donations to local causes – including funds set up in the names of the victims of the attack and the Southport Strong Together Appeal, which was established last year to support those affected. No large vigil will be held, but a three-minute silence will be observed at 3pm and churches and community centres will be open for those looking for support or space for quiet reflection. Cllr Lappin said plans for the day were guided by the families, who had their 'thoughts, compassion and incredible respect'. Last summer, a recovery fund was set up to help businesses affected by the attack and to support families. Cllr Lappin said the council had worked with the voluntary sector, specialists involved in trauma, community and faith groups and the emergency services over the past year. 'We hope that this is a holistic approach of listening to everybody with respect and dignity so that we can actually move forward together as much as we possibly can,' she said. 'This work is ongoing. It will continue.'
