Will Russell Brand end up at ‘Monster Mansion’ jail?: Rapist could face transfer to notorious HMP Wakefield where paedophile singer Ian Watkins was stabbed to death

Russell Brand could be facing a transfer to one of Britain’s most notorious jails where Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins was stabbed to death.

The comedian is currently at HMP Wandsworth in south-west London after he was jailed for 10 and a half years on Monday for rape and three counts of sexual assault. 

But he may be set for a move to HMP Wakefield, where Watkins, 48, was killed in October 2025 – followed by child killer Kyle Bevan a month later. 

The jail in West Yorkshire is known as ‘Monster Mansion’ for housing some of the UK’s most dangerous criminals alongside a large population of sex offenders.

Of all Britain’s jails, Wakefield is among the toughest to serve time in. 

Those locked up there include child killers Roy Whiting and Mark Bridger, as well as Jeremy Bamber – who murdered five members of his family at White House Farm, Essex, in 1985.

Jamie Varley was moved to the Category A jail over the summer after being convicted of the murder of 13-month-old Preston Davey.

Two-thirds of its 630 prisoners are sex offenders, who are considered the ‘lowest of the low’ and preyed on by other inmates. 

Watkins, who was serving a 29-year sentence for child sex crimes, was fatally stabbed in the neck during an early morning ambush. 

He was found dying in a pool of blood in a scene so gruesome that even hardened prison officers were shocked to their core. Two prisoners are set to go on trial for his murder next year.  

A month after Watkins’ death, three convicted killers ambushed Kyle Bevan, who was being held at Wakefield after murdering his partner’s two-year-old daughter.

Chilling prison CCTV footage, released after the trio were convicted of Bevan’s murder, showed them laughing and joking before they stormed his cell.

They stabbed the 33-year-old 25 times before tucking him up in his bed, leaving him to bleed to death. 

Three inmates – including a gangland assassin and two convicted murderers – received whole life terms for the murder. 

Brand’s current home of Wandsworth Prison is also notoriously violent, and was today described as ‘hell on earth’ by one former inmate. 

Chris Atkins, who served eight months at the jail for tax fraud, said Brand would find his first month to be ‘hands-down the worst’. 

While some deem Wakefield to be slightly better run than Wandsworth because its guards receive more training, its roll call of inmates is even more terrifying. 

‘Wakefield is a run-down jail, short of staff, who are suffering from low morale,’ a prison officer previously told the Mail. 

‘No one turns up to work with a smile on their face. You are looking after some of the most horrible people in the country.

‘There are so many sex offenders in Wakefield, along with some of the most violent people in the country. It’s a very dangerous mix.

‘With sex offenders, you could have people jailed for date rape all the way through to prolific child abusers, who are beyond any form of rehabilitation, mixing with violent criminals, murderers and gangsters.’

Wakefield’s history goes back to 1594 when it was founded as a ‘house of correction’ before the main facility that exists today was constructed in the 1840s.

Harold Shipman served time there, as did Soham killer Ian Huntley and Levi Bellfield, who murdered two women and schoolgirl Milly Dowler.  

Other former inmates include ‘Britain’s most violent prisoner’ Charles Bronson and Robert Maudsley, the country’s longest-serving inmate.

Known as Hannibal the Cannibal after killing a fellow prisoner and leaving the body with a spoon sticking out of its skull, while at Wakefield he murdered two more inmates.

Having killed them, he handed a guard his bloodied, home-made knife, saying: ‘There’ll be two short on the roll call.’

Until his recent transfer, Maudsley was deemed such a security risk that he was held in an underground glass and Perspex cell at Wakefield, which some believe was indeed the inspiration for Hannibal Lecter’s in The Silence Of The Lambs.

The jail is also home to Mick Philpott, who killed six of his 17 children in a house blaze – and was recently left ‘battered and bruised’ after a beating by a fellow inmate.

An official inspection report in September 2025 found there had been a 62 per cent rise in violent incidents at Wakefield, with 183 recorded in the prior year.

At the time, the inspection found the prison was facing ‘significant challenges’ as the ‘infrastructure was deteriorating’ and more younger prisoners were arriving.

Staff shortages had led to ‘restricted regimes and prisoners spending longer periods locked in their cells’, while ‘violence had increased sharply and many prisoners felt unsafe, with no clear strategy in place to address this’, according to the report.

In a survey of inmates last year, 55 per cent said it was easy to get drugs.

The infrastructure was found to be in a ‘very poor condition’ with ‘shabby’ showers and broken boilers and washing machines. As for emergency call bells in the cells, only a quarter of those quizzed said staff responded within five minutes of them being rung.

The food fared little better. The prison kitchen had been without a gas supply for more than five weeks, while only one in five inmates described the meals as ‘good’. 

A new report was issued on June 8 following a fresh inspection in April – which said that since the last report, ‘there had been two alleged murders in very close succession’.

It added: ‘Two prisoners had taken their own lives and there had been a further death yet to be classified. These events had taken a significant additional toll on leaders, staff and prisoners.’

Safety measures brought in after this included ‘reconfiguring’ the population, which had previously been ‘integrated, with prisoners convicted of sexual offences accommodated alongside those convicted of other serious offences’.

This meant a ‘considerable’ number of prisoners were moved out of the prison ‘to be replaced by others considered more suitable’, resulting in ‘nearly all prisoners’ at Wakefield now being deemed ‘vulnerable’ due to their offence or circumstances.

The report suggested the measures were working, given incidents of violence between prisoners had reduced by 68 per cent during the six months before the latest visit in April, compared with the same period before the previous inspection.

However, violence against staff had ‘increased slightly’ over the same two periods – which staff said was because of ‘enforced transfers in and out of the prison, which had temporarily increased tension, and continuing frustration at the limited nature of the regime for prisoners’.

Meanwhile inmates were now said to be waiting up to 11 weeks to see a GP, compared with three weeks in July 2025, while 110 inmates were waiting up to 35 weeks for a dental appointment.

The report concluded that there had been ‘insufficient progress’ on the concern in the previous report over ‘an increase in levels of violence, and many prisoners told us that they felt unsafe’.

If Brand is transferred to Wakefield, he may well be placed in solitary confinement for his own protection. 

All the while, he faces fighting a fresh wave of allegations against him, including claims that he ignored women’s pleas to stop during sex and exploited his celebrity status to pursue young fans. 

A third woman also claims the comedian grabbed her by the throat and sexually assaulted her in a hotel room, while another alleges he attempted to pull her into a disabled lavatory at a London venue as recently as 2015.

The allegations, which have not been tested in court, could not previously be published because of concerns that they might prejudice the criminal proceedings against him.