One of the women imprisoned for handing her child to the late Lostprophets’ paedophile Ian Watkins was freed from prison a couple of years ago.
Watkins was stabbed to death earlier this month at HMP Wakefield while serving a 35-year sentence after being convicted of 13 child sexual offences in 2013.
Two inmates, Rashid Gedel, 25, and Samuel Dodsworth, 43, have been charged with his murder.
Alongside the news of Watkins’ death, the Daily Mail has now confirmed the fate of the two mothers complicit in his egregious crimes – known as Woman A and Woman B to protect the identities of their children who were abused by the disgraced singer.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Woman B, who was sentenced to 17 years in prison in 2013, had started a fresh bid for freedom with an upcoming parole review confirmed.
Now, the Mail has revealed that Woman A, who was sentenced to 14 years after admitting her guilt to charges of child abuse from the start, has already been freed.
The Ministry of Justice told the publication that she was released in November 2023, having served more than half of her sentence.
During the trial, a psychiatrist spoke about the long-term impact this childhood abuse would have on Woman A’s child.
‘[They are] likely to have lifelong psychological difficulties coming to terms with the enormity of what has happened to him. He will eventually learn the truth of his childhood and the abuse he was subjected to,’ they said in court.
In a speech during both women’s 2013 trial at Cardiff Crown Court, Justice Royce said: ‘A mother naturally loves, protects, shields, nurtures and cherishes. Your infant would have trusted you implicitly. You totally betrayed that trust.’
Watkins’ ex-girlfriend Joanne Mjadzelics – whose concerns were repeatedly ignored by the police – had initially made contact with Woman A, then 20, in 2012 to warn her about Watkins.
A month later, Woman A and Watkins abused her baby together at the K West Hotel in West London and filmed it, in an act Justice Royce called ‘sickening and incomprehensible’.
Woman A then encouraged Watkins as he attempted to rape the baby.
Watkins was eventually arrested following the execution of a drugs warrant at his home in September 2012, where a large number of computers, mobile phones and storage devices were seized.
In 2014, he was refused the right to appeal his sentence due to the ‘shocking’ nature of his crimes.
According to music journalist and one-time acquantance Winwood: ‘Ian went to his grave thinking he had been wronged. He was deluded. I think he drove himself insane in the end.’
Mjadzelics told the Mail: ‘As far as I’m concerned neither of the [women] should be out of prison yet and neither should ever be allowed near children again. How can any mother do such evil to their own baby?,’
As for Woman B, she was previously released in 2021 before being sent back to prison shortly after.
In November 2023, there was another parole hearing to consider her release, concluding: ‘She had been too easily influenced and manipulated by another person.
‘She had felt lonely and had been unable to successfully maintain relationships. Nor had she thought sufficiently about the impact of her actions on her victim.’
Discussing her upcoming bid for release, a spokesperson for the Parole Board said: ‘‘Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community.’
‘A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims.’
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