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

Robert Maudsley, one of the UK’s most notorious killers, asked to have a pet brought into his prison cell for him and even promised that he wouldn’t eat it.

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

The 69-year-old killed four people in total, with three of the murders taking place in prison.

Maudsley’s first murder came in 1974 when he killed John Farrell in London.

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

He was garrotted by Maudsley, who then handed himself over to police, stating that he needed psychiatric help.

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

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

Maudsley 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?

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"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."

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.