Paedophile rocker’s ex could sue police after case blunders
THE former lover of paedophile rock star Ian Watkins says she is seeking legal advice in the wake of a report that found he could have been brought to justice nearly four years earlier if police had properly investigated her complaints.
An Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation published yesterday found that South Wales Police officers made “errors and omissions” and in some instances failed to “carry out even rudimentary investigation” into reports of Watkins’ wrongdoing made by Joanne Mjadzelics and other informants between 2008 and September 2012.
The damning report from the IPCC detailed how South Wales Police missed a series of opportunities to put a stop to the Lostprophets singer’s campaign of abuse against children in the years before his arrest.
IPCC commissioner for Wales Jan Williams said the investigation raised “disturbing concerns” about the way the reports had been handled.
Watkins was jailed for 29 years in December 2013 with a further six years on licence, after admitting a string of sex offences, including the attempted rape of a baby.
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.
Analysis of the equipment uncovered Watkins’ depraved behaviour.
In a statement released by Joanne Mjadzelics after the report was published, she said that she “finally felt vindicated” nine years after first reporting Ian Watkins to South Wales Police.
She said: “The IPCC report published finally vindicates me and accepts that from the outset I was telling the truth and trying to bring a serious criminal sexual predator to justice.
“It has been a long and difficult road for me over these years, during which I have at times been ignored and dismissed whilst at others maliciously handled and prosecuted by the police.
“All this has badly affected my health and welfare, but far worse than the effect on me is that there was a four-year delay between my reporting Watkins to the police and his arrest, time during which he remained at liberty able to perpetrate further crime.”
Ms Mjadzelics first reported Watkins to the authorities on December 29, 2008, when she telephoned Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council Children’s Services to make a report that Watkins was abusing a child. Children’s Services then passed the information to South Wales Police on December 30, 2008.
Ms Mjadzelics was later video interviewed in March 2009 when she told officers she had a message on her mobile phone from Watkins about his desire to sexually abuse children.
The report says the phone was not examined “on the basis that her report was malicious”.
Ms Mjadzelics said: “I truly hope that lessons have been learned by South Wales Police as suggested and that others brave enough to come forward and make reports of serious crime against a celebrity, or indeed anyone else, are treated with the respect and professionalism they deserve and not, as I was, dismissed and defamed because they are not deemed to be ‘the perfect witness’.”
She added that she was now “seeking legal advice on further action against the police arising from the series of events and my treatment”.
Ms Mjadzelics was cleared of possessing indecent images of children in January 2015, having told Cardiff Crown Court she was trying to entrap the depraved singer.
In total, the IPCC investigation found South Wales Police did not adequately action eight reports and three intelligence logs from six individuals concerning Watkins’ activities between 2008-12.