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

Quadruple killer Robert Maudsley, 71, is feared 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 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.

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 postmortem – 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.”

As a lad on Merseyside ( 
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Liverpool Echo WS)
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.

Quadruple killer Robert Maudsley, 71, is feared so dangerous he has been given his own special cell ( 
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Unknown)
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 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 Silence of the Lambs. Maudsley got his ‘Han­­nibal the Cannibal’ nickname amid claims 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 penned: “I am left to stagnate, vegetate and to regress”, adding: “My life in solitary is one long period of unbroken depression.”

Quadruple killer Robert Maudsley, 71, is feared so dangerous he has been given his own special cell ( 
Image:
BBC)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 Farrel 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.