25 January 2023 , 22:57
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One of Britain's most brutal killers now holds the record for the longest time in solitary confinement and has been likened to the fictional cannibal Hannibal Lecter.
Robert Mawdsley, named the "The Brain Eater" by his fellow inmates, spends life inside a bulletproof dungeon below HMP Wakefield.
He recently set the world record for the longest time in solitary confinement, a period of 16,400 days, in a cell likened to the glass box in Silence of the Lambs.
The prison, dubbed 'Monster Mansion' because of the high-risk inmates it has, holds the serial killer in a glass cell. He is only allowed out for one hour a day under close escort from six guards.
Rumours that Mawdsley once ate one of his victims are likely, but his crimes have still earned him a fearsome reputation.
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Mawdsley has killed four people, three of them were when he was behind bars (Unknown)He is reported to have a genius-level IQ and enjoys classical music, and poetry, but seclusion in his 5.5 by 4.5 metres has given him a depressing existence.
The serial killer, born in June 1953, has described his life behind bars as "one long period of unbroken depression."
In 2003, Mawdsley complained in The Guardian that he was left to "stagnate, vegetate and to regress."
Mawdsley lives in a confined space and is only allowed outside for an hour a day (Getty Images/iStockphoto)The feared inmate himself has even said that he hopes to take his own life at some point.
He said: "All I have to look forward to is further mental breakdown and possible suicide," he said. "In many ways, I think this is what the authorities hope for.
"That way the problem of Robert John Mawdsley can be easily and swiftly resolved."
"All I have to look forward to is further mental breakdown," Mawdsley once said (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures)His requests to alleviate his boredom include a cyanide pill and a pet budgerigar, both of which were denied.
He once wrote in a letter to The Times, asking: "Why can't I have a budgie instead of the flies and cockroaches and spiders I currently have? I promise to love it and not eat it."
Other nicknames given to Mawdsley include 'Blue', because of the colour his first victims turned and 'Spoons' because he left another victim with a spoon stuck in their skull.
Wakefield Prison, known as Monster Mansion (PA)Since, others have referred to him as 'Hannibal the Cannibal.'
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Working as a sex worker, he first killed someone in 1974 when customer Robert Farrell showed him pictures of children he had sexually abused.
Mawdsley has spoken of the violent and sexual abuse he faced from his parents as the reason behind his state of mind.
He said: " "When I kill, I think I have my parents in mind."
Mawdsley blames his murders on the abuse he received from his parents (Liverpool Echo)"'If I had killed my parents in 1970, none of these people need have died," he added. "If I had killed them, then I would be walking around as a free man without a care in the world."
The murder of Farrell caused him to be sent to Broadmoor Hospital. In 1977, he killed again after he and a fellow inmate locked themselves in a room with child molester David Francis.
The pair tortured Francis for nine hours and it was this incident the spoon nickname refers to.
After his second murder, Mawdsley was sent to maximum security Wakefield.
He set out on killing seven inmates in one afternoon in 1978, but managed to murder two. He garotted wife murderer Salney Darwood before putting his body under his bed.
Mawdsley then rounded on convicted child abuser William Roberts and struck him in the head with a makeshift dagger.
After the grim killings, he calmly told a prison guard to expect two fewer mouths to feed at dinner that night.