Britain’s most feared prisoner, serial killer Robert Maudsley – aka Hannibal the Cannibal – has twice been behind bars on the Isle of Wight. The killer-of-4 is said to hold the world record for years spent in solitary confinement: 46 in total. He is currently kept in a specially built glass cage in the cellar of Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire, only allowed out when accompanied by 4 prison officers. However, prior to the completion of his special cell, he was incarcerated in Parkhurst and was subsequently sent there for mental health treatment in the hospital wing. It is from his sojurn on the Island at the end of the century that we know of his mental condition, from the observations of Parkhurst Prison psychologist Dr Bob Johnson and prison officer and author Dave Burridge. 72-year-old Maudsley is fortunately no longer the force he once was. No doubt his appearance has radically altered. However, our only images of him come from a 40-year-old prison documentary when he was in his early 30s. Scouser Maudsley was born on 26th June 1953 in Toxteth, Liverpool. He was first imprisoned in 1974 having brutally murdered paedophile John Farrell in Wood Green, London, after he had shown him images of children he had sexually abused. He then handed himself in to the Police, confessed his crime and was sent to Broadmoor Hospital for the criminally insane. At Broadmoor, he was a ‘model’ prisoner until 1977 when he and a fellow prisoner locked themselves in a cell with child molester David Francis. After torturing Francis’s body for 9 hours, they dangled his lifeless body outside the cell for the prison guards to see. The corpse of the child molester was found with his head ‘cracked open like a boiled egg’, a spoon hanging out of it and part of his brain missing. It was from this incident that Maudsley earned the nickname ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ and ‘the Brain Eater’, even though the autopsy found he had not participated in any cannibalistic acts. He was convicted of manslaughter and placed in the mainstream prison system. In 1978, Maudsley strangled and stabbed wife-killer Salney Darwood before sneaking into the cell of paedophile Bill Roberts – who had sexually abused a 7-year-old girl – stabbing him, hacking his skull with a makeshift dagger then smashing his head against a wall. Maudsley was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2 killings. 
“He was so dangerous that whilst he was at Parkhurst he was only moved with a complete team in riot gear and dog handler.”
Parkhurst Prison psychologist Dr Bob Johnson – who treated Maudsley on the hospital wing of the notorious prison in the 1990s – has said of his first meeting with his former patient:
“Robert Maudsley is a very intelligent man, a very cultured man, he likes classical composer Schubert like I do. “I saw him on my first trip around; he was in a single cell, and he was gaunt, [with] a Moses type look. Long hair and miserable as sin. “At that time, he was probably the most dangerous prisoner in the prison system.”
Dr Johnson believes the most violent prisoners were born ‘lovable’ before they suffered horrific trauma at a young age and that they can be cured with the right treatment, claiming:
“These psychopaths, so-called, had all been born lovable, sociable and non-violent and something, which they couldn’t tell you, had gone wrong”.
Robert Maudsley says of himself:
“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. “I am left to stagnate, vegetate and to regress; left to confront my solitary head-on with people who have eyes but don’t see and who have ears but don’t hear, who have mouths but don’t speak. “My life in solitary is one long period of unbroken depression.”
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Maudsley now whiles away the days reading books on chess, then playing against himself. He has requested a pet budgie, promising to love it and “not eat it”. In a letter, Maudsley has asked the prison service:
“What purpose is served by keeping me locked up 23 hours a day? “Why even bother to feed me and to give me one hour’s exercise a day? Who actually am I a risk to?’ “I ask for a simple cyanide capsule which I shall willingly take and the problem of Robert John Maudsley can easily and swiftly be resolved.”
I don’t understand why on earth he is still in prison. Maudsley should be congratulated for ridding the world of such hideous people and saving the tax payers hundreds of thousands of pounds not imprisoned in such a tormented fashion.
Britains own Dexter.
Yeah give this man a medal! Got rid of some scum bags that we don’t have to pay for! Good lad!
What the authorities fear most, above all else, is the people taking the’law’ into their own hands, even if they are justified in doing so, as he seems to have been, and as the recent protests at never ending arrivals into the UK were.
I imagine, unlike the recent protesters, that this prisoner was a victim, or knew a victim of pedo’s , and it turned his mind so much he yearned revenge.
Clearly people like that can’t be free to roam society, yet the gangs who raped , forced abortions and raped again only young white girls are now free to live here and do such again, and people wonder ‘why’ the public are angry at truly ‘never ending’ unchecked arrivals here
The ‘Green mile’ is fiction, above is fact. Understand the difference
Very interesting story, he rid the world of disgusting things, yet imprisoned for life??
Should be congratulated, not incarcerated.
Having read the article fully support this man should be freed or his request to end his life be met. He basically did what most of us would do if we had children and found out what the victims had been up to and no police action taken against them prior to them being killed. Such a severe sentence for ridding the earth of “scum”, others have done worse and had lesser sentences I am sure. Perhaps some with media power needs to get involved and review the whole case to get Maudsley his wish. Not disputing what the former PO has stated but he doesn’t look frightening to me just mad that he has rid the world of scum and now being punished. Anyone locked away would end up “insane” but more like severe depression with suicidal thoughts.
Make him the managing director of the new nonce busters convention!
Yeah Sounds Good, All jokes aside he Would Make a Marvellous Role Model to Show Us The Way Forward with dealing with the Peadophile Infestation!
Maudley Quite Rightly As He Attests to him-self Should Be Given A Cyanide Capsule So that he Can End The Suffering that ‘Can’ and ‘Will’ Ultimately Only End When He Dies in a Glass House Courtesy of H.M.P He Did the World a Favour and Should Live in A Palace..Not a Glass House Where unfortunately he doesn’t even have a stone to Throw. Shame On You H.M.P.S !