The sinister story of the UK’s most dangerous prisoner who has spent over forty years alone in solitary confinement

Having earned himself the title as the country’s most dangerous prisoner, serial killer Robert Maudsley has spent the last four decades of his life alone in an underground glass box in solitary confinement.

Maudsley was just twenty-one years old when he committed his first murder – however, his final three murders were carried out behind bars.

It all started with a turbulent childhood – born in Toxteth, Liverpool, Maudsley and his siblings were all brought up in an orphanage, and would go on to spend their traumatic childhoods in and out of foster homes. 

When he was just sixteen, Maudsley left his foster home to move to London, where he quickly developed a consuming drug habit.

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It was here where Maudsley met his first victim – after picking up work as a rent boy, laborer and alleged child abuser, John Farrel had paid Maudsley for his services, only to be strangled, stabbed and beaten to death. 

Maudsley was quickly apprehended for the murder, and was subsequently sectioned and sent to serve a life sentence at Broadmoor Hospital – here, however, he went on to torture and kill a fellow patient using a sharpened spoon, a brutality that earned him the nickname ‘Hannibal the Cannibal.’

From there, he was moved to the maximum security Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire where two more murders took place.

It was at this point where staff decided that Maudsley was too dangerous to be around other inmates, and thus his life in solitary confinement began.

In 1983, a special two-unit cell was constructed for Maudsley – measuring just 5.5m by 4.5m and containing bullet-proof windows. According to the Guardian, inside the cell there’s just a bed, table and chair, along with a toilet and sink that are bolted to the floor.

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There’s also a solid steel door that opens inside a small cage within the cell, with a small slot towards the bottom for guards to pass Maudsley food and other items.

The publication reported in 2003 that the serial killer spends twenty-three hours a day in confinement, is escorted to the yard by six prison officers at a time, and isn’t allowed any contact with other prisoners.

According to the newspaper, Maudsley – who became the longest-serving living British prisoner following the death of murderer Ian Brady – 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.

“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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Over the years, the controversial cell has been nicknamed ‘the glass cage’ for its likeness to the 1991 film, Silence of the Lambs.

In 2000, Maudsley filed an application for suicide by a cyanide capsule – however, this was denied. His applications for a pet budgie, classical music and a television were also rejected.

In 2010, Maudsley reportedly asked officials to let him play board games with prison officials, claiming it would help ease some of the gloominess and monotony of life in solitary confinement – due to his crimes, however, officials remain reluctant to grant him any benefits.

The prisoner remains in this confinement to this very day, with no glimmer of any normality on the horizon – but should this case have been treated any differently?