Funeral For A Friend singer Matt Davies has commented on his friend Ian Watkins' arrest for alleged child sex offences.
Watkins, who fronts the band Lostprophets, is currently in custody awaiting trial to face allegations of conspiracy to rape a one year old and possessing "extreme" animal pornography.
Funeral For A Friend have known Lostprophets for years, and come the from the same part of the UK.
"No one had any inkling whatsoever of anything like that having to do with him," Davies told Noisecreep. "It goes to show that you never can tell... never in a million years would I think Ian would be that way. I think it's a massive shock to his fellow bandmates. You spend that kind of time together, but you never really know anybody.
"You wanna think that someone is innocent until proven guilty but there are so many things that have come out that it is hard to ignore, as well. You don't know what to think so you sit on the fence and see what happens."
Meanwhile, Funeral For A Friend are preparing to release their sixth studio album "Conduit". You can hear a new song, "The Distance", in the player below:
Strange the way he talks as though he thinks Ian's guilty and then at the end suddenly says he's on the fence. It all does sound a bit odd and may or may not be true. But sadly I feel as though this sort of reputation damage can never really be undone..
I guess it's that he objectively thinks Ian is guilty, but at the same time he doesn't want to think of someone he knows personally that way. Like when you think about the fact that your mom probably has some sort of fetish. Everyone's got one objectively, but you wouldn't think of her that way.
Well, like he said, he, and I think no one else, would have thought Ian would have done this, or was into this. The only problem I have is that people are now slamming lostprophets as a band, not just Ian. That's what I find stupid as well...
It's like Matt says, there are facts that can's be past unseen... he is not accused of just 1 thing, but now the whole band will split and become unemployed cause of his possible actions :S
About the new FFAF album:
From what I heard so far it's going to put Bullet's Temper Temper to shame! \m/
I personally think this is Funeral's 'creative slump', not Tales or Memory, as those albums had some great songs. The problem with a lot of their fanbase, is they have been brainwashed into thinking 'Heavy FFAF = Good'.
Looking at their twitter accounts it seems like they all do stuff outside of prophets. I think one has a coffee business or something. But still sucks. When the info came out I said I will still listen to them especially until he is proven guilty. But I haven't listened to them since. Maybe in my mind I know he is guilty but don't want to admit it to myself as I was a massive fan of them
"Innocent until proven guilty" are just words in our society, and nothing more. Almost everyone thinks he's guilty and nothing anyone says will ever change that. That seems to come with the nature of this crime. It's so sick and brutal that no one even wants to consider him to be innocent. It's kind of sad when you think about it. Randy Blythe is accused of killing a guy, and probably actually did have something to do with his death, and he has the support of almost everyone on this site. I don't know the whole story and he could be guilty, no one is denying that, but shouldn't we wait for proof before we vilify a guy?
Really good point.
But I'd imagine it's much easier to accidentally kill someone while at a hectic metal concert than it is to accidentally **** a baby. Just sayin'.
The difference between the examples is that in Randy's case, there is a video showing exactly what happened, essentially proving his innocence in the situation. No one seems to notice the security guard as being the one shoving the kid into the crowd, for some reason.
It doesn't change the fact that there are still a small handful of people who think Randy did it, and would love to see him hang. And video evidence or not, HE'S the one being convicted, not the security guard. I do hope that one clears up, too.
My point is, we don't know the whole story. If it turns out he was innocent all along and we locked him up and said all those nasty things anyway, we've ruined an innocent person's life and livelihood. And I just can't get behind that.
There is quite a lot of stuff out there (or was, when the story came out - probably deleted now, as I know the woman that outed this to the police has since deleted her Twitter account) if you dig hard enough for things from a year or more ago, including people making these sorts of allegations (and some really nasty stuff) from 12 months ago and older.
The fact that the FFAF singer suggests he's seen some of this potential evidence does further give the impression that some of the things out there are more credible than just gossip and rumours.
As I said, I don't know the whole story. That's why I refuse to get off this fence and fall in line with neither the accusers nor defenders. I wish UG would just wait until actual proof comes out, whether for or against, before posting another news story about this. Stuff like this stirs up more stupidity than I can handle.
"Watkins, who fronts the band Lostprophets, is currently in custody awaiting trial to face allegations of conspiracy to rape a one year old and possessing "extreme" animal pornography."
A lot of people seem to be overlooking the technicality of the charge. He's been charged with 'conspiring to rape', so at this stage there has been no actual rape performed.
I like Ian and I'm fairly sceptical of this charge. Partly because it seems like something the tabloids would have a field day with and partly because I don't want them to be true. So with that rosy view, I'm holding him innocent until proven guilty. And if that does happen then I'll feel really bad for having defended him.
But in the meantime:
1. The charge is of conspiracy, not actual rape.
2. This article says Matt Davies commented on his 'friend' Ian Watkins' arrest, but his comment is to immediately distance himself from Ian saying 'Who knew he was that sick?'. That's not super friendly imho.
Here's the thing though, he was also charged with other things besides conspiring to rape a 1 year old. There's 4 charges on him that relate to DISTRIBUTING indecent images of children and animal pornography. So even if they dropped the charges relating to conspiracy to rape, he still has to answer for why sexual pictures of underage children were in his possession.
I know two guys that have charges for possessing and distribution of child porn (with about the same amount of charges). I can tell you that where its an electronic file, it automatically becomes distribution because they assume you're also sharing these files like in torrents. Also the amount can also be 1 charge per frame. They both got 25 to 30 years, suspended sentence. Meaning they serve 3 to 6 years.
If the UK is worded like the US in the law for this crime, I'll bet he'll get about the same sentence for those charges. Although with the addition of the conspiracy to commit rape I don't think he'll have a light sentence. My guess would be 30 to 50 years easy, with him serving at least half that; but it depends on the judge. But while he could try to argue his way out of the conspiracy charge, I doubt he can get out of the possession/distribution.
Ooh that's awkward then. I'm still hoping it's all a bunch of tabloid crap, but I didn't know about the other charges. I'll reserve judgement till the verdict is in still.
Even if he did get less time in prison or something for "conspiracy" to rape it wouldn't make him any better. It would be like being charged with assault instead of murder just because you missed or ran out of bullets. Probably a great thing for the one year olds he was conspiring against tho.
They don't arrest and publicly release the name of a fairly famous person over a bunch of tabloid crap. This is career and reputation ruining stuff. To do what they've done, they NEED to be sure.
