UK's most dangerous prisoner to spend 51st Christmas in underground glass box

The UK’s longest-serving prisoner, dubbed Hannibal the Cannibal, is set to spend his 51st Christmas behind bars.

Quadruple killer Robert Maudsley, 71, is considered so dangerous, he has been given his own special cell and kept apart from other inmates for almost 17,000 days, or 46 years.

Maudsley, born Robert Mawdsley on Merseyside in 1953, was first sent to Broadmoor secure hospital in 1974 after garrotting John Farrell, who had picked him up for sex.

He earned his frightening nickname after killing three men who were being detained with him: a fellow Broadmoor patient in 1977, followed by two prisoners in 1978 when he went on the rampage at HMP Wakefield, West Yorkshire, after he was transferred there.

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One of his victims was found with a blade fashioned from a plastic spoon in his ear, which led to the moniker Hannibal the Cannibal, amid claims – proven false by a post mortem – that Maudsley had eaten his brain. At Wakefield, he was said to have told other inmates that he wanted to kill seven men, and to have informed a guard: “There’ll be two short on the roll call.”

His purpose-built, super-secure cell has been compared to the one housing Dr Hannibal Lecter in the film The Silence of the Lambs.

Maudsley once wrote: “The prison authorities see me as a problem, and their solution has been to put me into solitary confinement and throw away the key, to bury me alive in a concrete coffin. It does not matter to them whether I am mad or bad. They do not know the answer and they do not care just so long as I am kept out of sight and out of mind.”

The murderer made a failed bid to be moved out of solitary in 2000, and sent letters to The Times requesting a cyanide suicide pill.

He is said to have a high IQ and to love ­classical music, poetry and art, and those who have visited him inside describe him as gentle, kind, and highly intelligent. Former detective Paul Harrison said in 2018 of Maudsley after meeting him: “If you didn’t know him and what he’d done, and you saw him, he’s a really intelligent, clever guy, who made you smile.”

US prisoner Albert Woodfox held the world record for solitary confinement at 43 years before his release in 2016.

The Ministry of Justice insisted there was “no such thing as solitary confinement in our prison system”. A Prison Service spokesman said: “Some offenders will be segregated if they pose a risk to others. They are allowed time in the open air every day, visits, phone calls, and access to legal advice and medical care like everyone else.” Segregation of prisoners is “reviewed regularly”, the spokesman added.

A former prison officer who guarded some of the country's most notorious criminals for more than a decade has argued that Maudsley should be taken out of his underground cell. Neil Samworth told the Daily Mail: "I think it's wrong, the way he has been treated. He is in total isolation and it is not fair. I think his crimes are historic now and he represents no real danger to others. It's a bit like Charlie Bronson. Yes, he has had lots of fights in the past but he is an old man now.'"

The cell, which reportedly measures 18ft by 15ft - slightly bigger than average - has a concrete slab for a bed. It has large bulletproof windows and a table and chair made of compressed cardboard. The lavatory and sink are also bolted to the floor. Maudsley is passed food through a small slot in the steel door, which is encased in thick Perspex.

It is said to bear an uncanny likeness to the cell of cannibal killer Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs. Maudsley got his 'Han­­nibal the Cannibal' nickname amid claims that he dug a spoon into the brain of one of his victims - an allegation he always denied.

He is allowed one hour of exercise per day while surrounded by six burly guards, and is forbidden from having contact with any other prisoners. In a letter more than two decades ago, he wrote: "I am left to stagnate, vegetate and to regress," adding: "My life in solitary is one long period of unbroken depression."

Jailed 50 years ago in 1974, he is believed to be Britain's longest-serving prisoner after Moors murderer Ian Brady, who died in 2017 after serving 51 years. But even life behind bars hasn't stopped the violent killer from lashing out, and he has murdered another three men since he has been locked up.

Maudsley garrotted Farrell in 1974 after he showed him photographs of children he had sexually abused. The murder was so violent, police nicknamed the victim "blue" because of the colour of his face. Maudsley was jailed for life with the recommendation that he should never be released.

He was sent to Broadmoor Hospital, which housed some of the country's most dangerous prisoners. For several years, Maudsley kept himself out of trouble, but in 1977 he and fellow prisoner, David Cheeseman, barricaded themselves in a cell with convicted child molester, David Francis. For nine hours, they tortured Francis in the most brutal way.

When the guards finally broke the door down, Francis was dead. Maudsley was then moved to the maximum security Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire, but a year after he killed Francis, his murderous rage returned. On July 29, 1978, he garrotted and stabbed wife killer, Salney Darwood, in his cell and hid the body under the bed.

Maudsley then stalked the prison wing for his next victim and attacked Bill Roberts, who had been jailed for sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl. He stabbed Roberts to death before hacking at his skull with a makeshift dagger. When Maudsley was certain Roberts was dead, he calmly walked up to a prison guard and told him there would be two less for dinner that night.

Now deemed too dangerous to remain among the general prison population, work began on constructing a special glass-caged cell for Maudsley in the bowels of Wakefield Prison. By 1983, it was ready. The triple killer once described his cell as "like being buried alive in a coffin".

In the early days of his confinement, he wrote to newspapers campaigning for better treatment. In 2000, he went to court in a bid to be "allowed to die". In a letter, he asked why he couldn't have a pet budgie, promising to love it and "not eat it". And questioning why he couldn't have a TV to "see the world", he ended the letter saying: "If the prison service says no then I ask for a simple cyanide capsule which I shall willingly take and the problem of Robert John Mawdsley can easily and swiftly be resolved."

His nephew, Gavin Maudsley, from Liverpool, told Channel 5's Evil Behind Bars that his uncle had accepted his fate. Gavin said: "He's asking to be on his own because he knows what can happen. Put him on a wing surrounded by rapists and paedophiles - I know this because he told us - he was going to kill as many paedophiles as he could. I'm not condoning what he did. He did very bad things. But he didn't kill a child or woman. An innocent person didn't go to work that day and never return home. The people he killed were really bad people."

A murderer who spent time in the cell next to Maudsley told the programme: "I felt we were being psychologically murdered. The system's treatment of Bob was totally dehumanising. To hold someone in an underground cage for over 40 years. It is unforgivable. What Bob did in terms of murdering sex offenders is obviously wrong. But what the system has done to Bob amounts to psychological torture. There are other ways of dealing with prisoners like Bob."

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