UK’s most dangerous prisoner about to spend another Christmas in a ‘glass box’

A mass murderer who was once thought to have eaten the brains of his victims will be celebrating Christmas this year after 45 years behind bars.

Robert Maudsley, now 71, has been convicted of three murders and one count of manslaughter for the killings of a man and three fellow male prisoners during the 1970s.

In 1978 the killer managed to slay two inmates in one day during a bloody rampage at HMP Wakefield, before he calmly informed the guards they would have two less names for the evening roll call.

Born in Liverpool, Maudsley is considered so dangerous to fellow inmates the Liverpool Echo reports he is confined to a perspex cage similar to that used to detain the Hannibal Lecter character played by actor Anthony Hopkins in the film, Silence of the Lambs.

Maudsley’s cell or “dungeon” has been reported as “bulletproof”, 18ft by 15ft and with a “concrete slab for a bed”. It is also said to be decked out with bulletproof windows and a cardboard table and chair, reports the Liverpool Echo.

He was first imprisoned for murder in 1974 for strangling child molester John Farrell in Wood Green, London, after the paedophile showed Maudsley pictures of children he had sexually abused.

In 1977, Maudsley and fellow inmate David Cheeseman barricaded themselves in a cell with another child molester, David Francis, subjecting him to nine hours of torture. This horrific act resulted in Maudsley being convicted of manslaughter and subsequently transferred to HMP Wakefield.

His violent streak continued into 1978 when he strangled and stabbed Salney Darwood, aged 46, before turning his attention to paedophile Bill Roberts, 56. He stabbed Roberts and then brutally smashed his head into a wall.

The killer’s noteriety increased after false reports in the press he had consumed some of the flesh of his inmate victims, leading him to be dubbed “Hannibal the Cannibal” by the press and “The Brain Eater” by prisoners.

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.