Britain's 'most dangerous serial killer' writes letter from underground glass box as he’s ‘left to stagnate’ in prison
A man dubbed ‘Britain’s most dangerous serial killer’, who lives inside a sealed glass box in the basement of a prison, wrote a letter to say that his life is ‘one long period of unbroken depression’.
Robert Maudsley is the longest-serving British prisoner in solitary confinement - he’s spent over four decades locked away from other inmates after he killed three people while in prison.
Maudsley was just 21 and working as a sex worker in London when he carried out his first killing in 1974.
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He was picked up by a man named John Farrell and after Farrell allegedly showed him photographs of children he'd sexually abused, Maudsley garrotted him.
He handed himself in to police where he told them he needed psychiatric help.
Maudsley was eventually ruled unfit to stand trial and sent to high-security psychiatric hospital Broadmoor.
In 1977, he and another patient at Broadmoor tortured and killed fellow patient David Francis, a convicted child molester.
Maudsley was convicted of manslaughter and sent to Wakefield Prison.
Despite briefly returning to Broadmoor, Maudsley later received a whole life order - meaning he will never be eligible for parole - and was sent back to Wakefield.
Maudsley later killed two other inmates at Wakefield - one of whom was imprisoned for killing their wife. He originally set out to kill seven prisoners that day, according to other inmates.
Due to his history of violence, he was placed in solitary confinement before later being rehoused in a specially-built 18ft by 15ft cell, featuring bulletproof windows, a toilet and sink bolted to the floor and a table and chair made from compressed cardboard.
In a letter written from inside his cell, Maudsley, who is now 70, complained about his situation.
He 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.
"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."
Claire Reid