The nation’s ‘most dangerous prisoner’ once asked for a disturbing present while behind bars.
Robert Maudsley is known as the most dangerous serial killer in the UK, and is behind bars for the murder of four people from 1974-1978, with one taking place in a psychiatric hospital and another two taking place in prison.
The killer was born in Liverpool in 1953, and was allegedly physically abused by his father, leading to psychological issues later in life.
He would then become a sex worker in London in the 1960s to fuel his drug addiction, which would ultimately lead to his first murder.
The 71-year-old was initially imprisoned for killing John Farrell, who picked him up and then showed him pictures of kids that he had sexually abused, leading to Maudsley garrotting him and police giving him the nickname ‘blue’ because of the colour of his victim’s face.
Due to being unfit to stand trial, he was put in Broadmoor Hospital with the recommendation that he never be released.
In 1977, along with fellow prisoner David Cheeseman, he trapped them in a cell with child molester David Francis, as the pair tortured him for nine hours, ultimately killing him.
After being sent to the maximum security Wakefield prison, he killed Salney Darwood, who sexually assaulted and killed his wife, and then killed Bill Roberts, who has been convicted of sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl, on the same day.
Now, Maudsley is kept in similar conditions to movie character Hannibal Lecter, isolated in an underground cell until his death.
He has been behind bars for 50 years, setting a new record for amount of days spent in solitary confinement in the UK, which was 16,400 days at the time.
Maudsley’s cell is 18ft by 15ft, sleeping on a concrete slab, while the serial killer is not allowed to see or speak to prisoners or prison guards, with the small see-through room acting as his home for years.
The cell has large bullet windows, and even a table and chair made of cardboard.
His toilet and sink are screwed into the floor, while a steel door separates him from the outside world, while a tiny slot at the bottom is how he gets his food.
With not much in his cell, he described it to be ‘in a coffin’. In a letter to the Times in 2000, he asked for a TV to ‘see the world’.
He added that if he was denied, that he would then ‘ask for a simple cyanide capsule which I shall willingly take and the problem of Robert John Maudsley can easily and swiftly be resolved’.
He also asked for a pet budgie and promised to care for it and ‘not eat it’.
He remains one of the UK’s longest serving prisoners, and is about to spend his 51st Christmas behind bars.
