Britain's most dangerous prisoner once asked for a pet and promised he wouldn't eat it

The UK's most dangerous prisoner - who remains the longest-serving British prisoner in solitary confinement - once asked for a pet in his cell.

He also promised he wouldn't eat it.

The now 70-year-old committed his first crime in the mid 70s when he killed John Farrell in London.

Farrell had picked him up for sex and showed him evidence of child sexual abuse.

BBC

Robert Maudsley handed himself over to police after killing Farrell, admitting that he needed psychiatric help.

In 1977, Maudsley and another prisoner tortured and killed child molester David Francis in Broadmoor Hospital.

The following year, he then killed two inmates at HMP Wakefield after he was sent there.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the recommendation that he never be released.

Maudsley remains in Wakefield, kept in solitary confinement for 23-hours of every day in a specially built cell.

The prisoner also requested to have a TV so that he could learn about the world outside.

Alternatively, he asked to be given a single cyanide pill with which to end his own life.

He wrote: "As a consequence of my current treatment and confinement, I feel that all I have to look forward to is indeed psychological breakdown, mental illness and probable suicide.

"Why can’t I have a budgie instead of flies, cockroaches and spiders which I currently have. I promise to love it and not eat it?

"Why can’t I have a television in my cell to see the world and learn? Why can’t I have any music tapes and listen to beautiful classical music?

"If the Prison Service says no then I ask for a simple cyanide capsule which I shall willingly take and the problem of Robert John Maudsley can easily and swiftly be resolved."

Quest Red

Maudsley was the victim of horrific abuse as a child, both in a religious orphanage and at the hands of his parents.

On one occasion, he was kept in one room for six months, eerily similar to how he lives now.

During his trial, he claimed that he was thinking about his parents and how he should have killed them when he committed his crimes.

In 2000, he appealed to the UK’s Prison Service to be allowed to keep a pet, which he also promised not to eat.

He asked for a pet budgerigar, which was denied by the board.

Although has was described as the ‘Cannibal Killer’ in the press, the allegations of cannibalism turned out to be false.

Maudsley states his victims were rapists, paedophiles or sex offenders.