26 February 2024 , 13:55
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A twisted murderer who has been inside for 50 years and killed three other inmates should be allowed out of solitary confinement, an ex-prison officer claims.
Robert 'Hannibal the Cannibal' Maudsley is the longest-serving inmate in the UK penal system, having been locked up in 1974. The 70-year-old, from Liverpool, last year spent his 50th consecutive Christmas behind bars.
He was locked up aged 21. Since then, he has been kept apart from other lags for 45 years after killing three. Maudsley had special provisions made for him at Wakefield Prison, including being kept in an underground glass dungeon. The special cell measures 18ft by 14ft, and his kept in it for 23 hours a day in the basement.
Neil Samworth, who served at HMP Strangeways in Manchester for more than a decade before retiring, has now come forward to argue Maudsley should be taken out of the bulletproof glass cell.
Maudsley as a schoolboy (Liverpool Echo)He 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.'"
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The violent prisoner has only been pictured once since his incarceration after being filmed for a documentary on him more than 40 years ago. When he leaves his specially-made cell, Maudsley is guarded by four officers. He has long urged the prison authorities to move him into better conditions.
In letters more than two decades ago, he penned: "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."
Initial reports falsely stated Maudsley ate part of the brain of one of the men he killed in prison, which earned him his nickname from parts of the press and 'The Brain Eater' amongst other prisoners. The media was later advised that the allegations were untrue, according to the post-mortem report.
In 1974, Maudsley garrotted John Farrell in Wood Green, London. His victim had picked his killer up for sex and allegedly showed him pictures of children he had abused. Maudsley surrendered himself to police and was deemed unfit to stand trial. Instead, he was sent to Broadmoor Hospital.
In 1977, he and another patient locked themselves in a cell with a third, David Francis - a convicted child molester. They tortured him to death over a period of nine hours. Maudsley was convicted of manslaughter and sent to Wakefield Prison. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation he never be released.
In 1978, he killed two fellow prisoners in one day - Salney Darwood and William Roberts. Maudsley has stated his victims were rapists, paedophiles or sex offenders.