Joanne Mjadzelics: Lostprophets' Ian Watkins' ex cleared of child abuse images charges

The former girlfriend of disgraced Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins has been cleared of a string of child abuse images offences.

Joanne Mjadzelics, 39, faced seven charges, including possessing and distributing indecent images of children which she was accused of sharing with the paedophile frontman.

Mjadzelics claimed she encouraged Watkins to send her the images in a bid to expose him. Following a trial at Cardiff Crown Court, she has now been cleared of all charges against her.

Mjadzelics accused the police of attempting to "punish" her for attempting to bring forward a prosecution against Watkins, who was sentenced to 35 years in jail for a series of child sex offences.

She said: "I shouldn't have even been here - just for doing the police's job that they couldn't be a***d to do."

She added: "What message does this send to whistleblowers if police choose to go after them".

Mjadzelics said she attempted to raise the alarm about Watkins to police in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012.

South Wales Police Deputy Chief Constable, Matt Jukes, said the force remains committed to reviewing its investigation prior to the arrest of Watkins, with an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission already under way.

He said: "We are committed to reviewing the case in this way and have already completed further reviews into supervision within public protection and our intelligence processes to improve our identification of risk."

A South Wales Police spokesperson added: "The safeguarding of vulnerable people and children remains our priority and it is right and proper for us to take evidence of this nature to the Crown Prosecution Service, who then make the final decision whether it should go before the courts."

Catrin Attwell, senior crown prosecutor, said: "Our role is to consider the evidence gathered by police investigations and decide whether there is a realistic prospect of a conviction in court. When making charging decisions, we are required to comply with the Code for Crown Prosecutors, which sets out the evidential and public interest test that criminal cases need to meet.

"It should be noted that any decision by the CPS does not imply any finding concerning guilt or criminal conduct; the CPS makes decisions only according to the test set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors and it is applied in all decisions on whether or not to prosecute".