A ' brain eating' killer sleeps on a concrete slab in a dungeon after killing three inmates.
Robert Maudsley, has been dubbed “the brain eater” by other prisoners. He was in his early 20s when he committed his first murder. But after he was jailed, he continued to kill inside and has been incarcerated in the UK's most secure cell.
He is being being held in Wakefield Prison in a glass box under a prison. The killer has been described as so dangerous he will never be released. Prison guards have locked him in a 'one-of-a-kind' dungeon to prevent him killing other prisoners.
The Daily Star reports the cell has been likened to the glass cage which housed serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the film Silence of the Lambs. It measures 18ft wide by 15ft deep and has huge bulletproof glass windows so he can be kept under constant observation. The only furniture joining him is a table and a chair which are made of compressed cardboard, the toilet and sink are bolted to the floor.
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Man in 30s dies after being stabbed in park sparking police probeMaudsley's bed is a concrete slab and the door is constructed of solid steel, which opens into a cage just inside. It is encased in thick, see-through, acrylic panels and has a small slit at the bottom, through which guards pass the serial killer his meals and other items he needs. He is locked in the cell for 23 hours a day, only being freed for a daily hour of exercise.
During exercise, he is escorted to the exercise yard by six guards and is never allowed any contact with other inmates. Maudsley said he felt "tormented" by his solitary confinement. He said: "There is a lack of hope and I don't appear to have anything to look forward to.”
He reportedly wrote a letter to The Times, and asked: "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." In March 2000, he wrote another letter asking for a cyanide pill so that he could end his life.
The killer suffered a traumatic childhood, and endured violent and sexual abuse until he left home. And he has blamed his upbringing for his later murderous acts. He said in 1979, when on trial for a double murder: “If I had killed my parents in 1970, none of these people need have died.”
While working as a male prostitute in London in 1974, Maudsley met Robert Farrell who paid him for sex and showed him pictures of children he had sexually abused. He then strangled Farrell, and later that year was sentenced to life imprisonment on the recommendation he should never be released.
Maudsley and fellow Broadmoor inmate, David Cheeseman, barricaded themselves into a cell in 1977 with convicted child molester, David Francis. They tortured Francis for nine brutal hours before finally killing him. Inside the prison, Maudsley was nicknamed "Spoons" because Francis’s body was reportedly found with a spoon sticking out of the skull and part of the brain missing.
The murderer was moved to the maximum security Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire, but a year after after the murder of Francis he killed again. On July 29, 1978, he garrotted and stabbed wife killer, Salney Darwood, in his cell and hid the body under the bed. Maudsley stalked the prison wing for before attacking Bill Roberts, who was in prison for sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl Roberts was stabbed to death before his skull was hacked with a makeshift dagger.
After ensuring Roberts was dead Maudsley approached a prison guard and told him there would be two less mouths to feed at dinner that night. He is now too dangerous to remain amongst the general prison population, which sparked work to build his special cell in the depths of Wakefield Prison. He has been in that same room since 1983 and is not likely to leave it alive.