As news broke of Ian Watkins’ murder in prison last weekend it reached, among others, the two women who stood trial back in 2013 alongside the twisted Lostprophets frontman.

Known to the outside world only as Woman A and Woman B – to protect the identity of the babies they offered up to the paedophile rock star – these two mothers, if they can be said to merit that title, were also handed lengthy jail sentences as a result of their sick crimes.

Today, the Daily Mail can reveal that Woman A is already free, while Woman B – who was briefly released in 2021 on licence before being returned to prison for breaking its conditions – is set to plead for her freedom once more at a forthcoming parole hearing.

Their stories give an extraordinary insight into the sinister workings of Watkins’ warped mind and how the singer, who was serving a 29-year jail sentence for 13 child sex offences, preyed on insecure, unstable women because he could manipulate them into helping him act out – and join in with – his most hideous fantasies.

More, in a moment, of new revelations about the two infatuated women, both unfathomably from respectable, loving families, whose innocent children – a boy and a girl – were taken into care and are now in their teens.

For what has become painfully clear over the past seven days is that the repercussions of Watkins’ crimes did not end with his brutal slaying in Wakefield Prison, where the 48-year-old former musician’s throat was cut by two fellow prisoners last Saturday morning.

Aside from his victims – which included other children and those who appeared in the vile pornography he kept on various electronic devices and shared with others – are the family members in his home town of Pontypridd, in South Wales, who are still struggling to comprehend what drove him to such evil.

Then there are his fellow band members, several of whom had known Watkins since childhood, who knew nothing of his hideous crimes and, when they were finally uncovered more than a decade ago, saw their musical legacy wiped out in an instant.

Several are now living in America from where one of them, former keyboard player Jamie Oliver, told me that ‘this is a profoundly difficult and complex time for my family’ and that he was unable to ‘process or express’ the emotions he felt.

‘The bomb blast Ian caused continues to radiate outwards,’ says music journalist Ian Winwood, who spent time with Lostprophets when they were at the height of their fame, once regarded Watkins as a friend and later wrote about ‘the darkness that enveloped him’ in his book, Bodies: Life And Death In Music.

‘It goes without saying that his primary victims were the children he violated and those whose images were found in his computer,’ adds Winwood. ‘There is no doubt that others continue to suffer.’

Among them is whistleblower Joanne Mjadzelics, one of Watkins’ former girlfriends, who warned police repeatedly about his behaviour – and that of Woman A and Woman B – after the monster shared his vile fantasies and repeatedly sent her sick child pornography images.

Mjadzelics, who first contacted police in 2008 and was ignored for years before Watkins’ arrest in 2012, initially contacted both women to warn them about Watkins’ behaviour, not realising that the besotted pair were well aware of his proclivities and complicit in his crimes. They pretended to be shocked by what she told them, before going on to abuse their own children with Watkins – as well as informing him of Joanne’s attempts to get him arrested.

‘As far as I’m concerned neither of them should be out of prison yet and neither should ever be allowed near children again,’ says the 50-year-old mother from Doncaster. ‘How can any mother do such evil to their own baby?’

It is a question which others will no doubt be asking – this week of all weeks.

For if Ian Watkins’ evil sexual desires are already impossible for most to comprehend, then the actions of these two young women surely go beyond belief.

Their 2013 trial at Cardiff Crown Court, said the judge presiding over it, ‘breaks new ground’, adding that what the trio had done ‘plumbed new depths of depravity’. Mr Justice Royce added: ‘A mother naturally loves, protects, shields, nurtures and cherishes. Your infant would have trusted you implicitly. You totally betrayed that trust.’

In March 2012, at the height of Watkins’ crimes, Joanne arranged to meet up with then 20-year-old Woman A after learning she and her baby son, still less than a year old, had been in contact with former graphic designer Watkins.

‘She was going to come with me to give a statement to the police but didn’t turn up the first time,’ says Joanne.

‘When she came round to my house a few days later she showed me a photo on her phone of Ian lying down on a bed with her baby lying next to him.

‘She acted as if she was really worried about what I was telling her about him. She said that Ian had said to her: “Let’s put GHB [otherwise known as liquid ecstasy] in his sippy cup” but that she thought he was joking.

‘She said she would give a statement to the police but four days later she was on her way to Cardiff on the train to see him.’

It was just a month later that Woman A and Watkins abused her baby together at the K West Hotel in West London and filmed it.

Details of the incident – described by Mr Justice Royce as ‘sickening and incomprehensible’ – and their drug-taking were revealed at their trial. Watkins tried to rape the baby while Woman A encouraged him.

She messaged Watkins again in May saying: ‘The boy is ready to be abused’, and later met up again with Watkins. Joanne was also in contact via social media with Woman B, who was engaged to her boyfriend at the time she committed her crimes with Watkins.

‘She started messaging me at the beginning of 2012,’ says Joanne. ‘Ian had started warning his most obsessed fans about me, saying that I was making wild accusations about him and they shouldn’t listen to anything I said.

‘But she messaged me first of all to show her support because she had a baby of her own – and then kept asking me how it was going with the police.’

Joanne discovered that this second woman, then aged 23, was also a willing accomplice when, determined to keep gathering evidence against Watkins, Joanne met up with him in London in October that year. By that time, the rock star’s ego had become so monstrous that he would brag of his antics even though he knew Joanne had been to the police. ‘He thought he was untouchable because the police hadn’t done anything,’ she says, adding: ‘The first thing he said when I saw him was: “I’ve got a two-year-old on Tuesday.” He said it like it was the most normal thing in the world to be served with a child. It was sickening.’ When she asked who the parents were, he replied: ‘I’ve got these super-fans. They’ll do anything for me.’

Later, looking over his shoulder, she realised to her horror that he was messaging Woman B. ‘I recognised her profile picture straight away. I couldn’t believe she was in on it,’ says Joanne.

‘I already knew that her daughter was younger than two. I said to him: “Are you sure the two-year-old isn’t 18 months old?” He said: “I don’t care how old it is.”

‘I felt sick. I wanted to stop her. I messaged her and said: “Please don’t do this. Please don’t”.’

The woman responded by sending Joanne a smiley face emoji and the message: ‘We’ve only been Skyping.’

Watkins and Woman B had been in touch since August 2012. The jury heard that their online messages had quickly turned to child abuse with Woman B offering ‘a mother-daughter slave duo, worshipping you’.

Watkins spoke of torturing the little girl for fun and said: ‘That’s all she will know... a life of filth.’

Woman B sent Watkins photos of herself abusing her daughter, something she also did over Skype.

In October 2012, she took her baby to meet Watkins at a Travelodge in Caerphilly and on another occasion, it is believed, the Radisson in Cardiff. She and Watkins planned to rape the little girl.

Joanne handed the woman’s name to police but when they contacted her, Woman B denied any wrongdoing.

The allegations were initially cast aside as squabbling between fans and ex-girlfriends.

An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Complaints would later reveal that despite ‘a litany of reports’ about his behaviour – including allegations from six people – South Wales police failed to act and ‘missed opportunities to bring him to justice earlier’.

It also found that a simple check of one of the devices Joanne offered them would have clearly shown Watkins’ sexual interest in children.

Watkins’ days of liberty, however, were ultimately numbered. A month earlier, after a tip-off, his home had been raided and he had been arrested and bailed on drugs offences.

Eventually his terrible crimes, and those of Women A and B – along with horrific pornography including images of bestiality and children aged between two and 14 – were found on his various devices.

At the end of their trial Woman A, who admitted her guilt from the start, was sentenced to 14 years. The Ministry of Justice has told the Daily Mail that she was released in November 2023 having served more than half of her sentence.

Woman B who, along with Watkins, only pleaded guilty on the second day of the trial, was sentenced to 17 years. A psychologist concluded she had used her daughter ‘as a tool to secure Watkins’ acceptance’. The judge said she didn’t consider her child as a human being.

Her lawyer told the court that Watkins, who called himself ‘master’, had promised her a life she could only have dreamed of.

She was initially freed at the automatic release point of her sentence in June 2021 but her licence was revoked and she was recalled to custody the following September.

Disturbingly, she had been lying about her relationships and failed to disclose essential information to her parole officer.

These details emerged at another parole hearing in November 2023 to consider whether she could be freed from prison for a second time.

According to a written summary at the 2023 hearing: ‘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.’

It was also revealed that she had refused to take any treatments to help her understand her appalling sex offences.

The panel concluded that she was ‘appropriately located in custody where outstanding levels of risk could be contained’.

Watkins never showed an ounce of remorse for his crimes. From inside his high-security prison he even managed to groom a 21-year-old mother from Lincolnshire who had been a Lostprophets fan since her teens.

Her child was taken into care in 2017. According to music journalist Winwood: ‘Ian went to his grave thinking he had been wronged. He was deluded.

‘I think he drove himself insane in the end.’

The last time Winwood saw Watkins was in May 2012, backstage at Brixton Academy in South London, where the singer turned up a matter of minutes before he was due on stage.

It was, the journalist later calculated, just days after Watkins abused Woman A’s son at the hotel in West London.

The once charismatic star was bloated and unwashed. His teeth had started to rot. The look on his face was ‘leery and sly’.

‘He was unmanageable and toxic by then but everybody including myself just attributed it to the vicious array of drugs he was taking,’ says Winwood.

‘When he turned up, he and the other band members barely acknowledged each other. I remember thinking that it looked like they hated him.’

In court, the judge spoke of fears of the long-term impact these crimes would have on the child victims despite how young they were at the time. While placed in foster care, it was made clear that one day they will be told what happened to them at their wicked mothers’ hands.

Woman A’s child, according to psychiatrists was ‘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.’

A hair sample from Woman B’s baby girl revealed she had been exposed to methamphetamine.

Neither women can ever be identified; not for their sakes but for those of their children who, as they enter their teens and approach adulthood, must come to terms with the fact that their own mothers – the very individuals who should have protected them – offered them up like lambs to the slaughter.

As Mr Justice Royce put it back in 2013: ‘Could there be a greater betrayal?’