UK's longest-serving prisoner Robert Maudsley: I want to stay behind bars – I could kill again

UK's longest-serving prisoner Robert Maudsley: I want to stay behind bars – I could kill again EXCLUSIVE: In his first interview in almost 50 years, quadruple killer Robert Maudsley, 73, spoke to the Mirror from his prison cell on E Wing in HMP Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire Britain's longest serving prisoner has told of his 17,500 consecutive days in solitary confinement - and warns that he could kill again. In his first interview in 50 years, quadruple killer Robert Maudsley, 73, spoke to the Mirror from 'E' Wing of HMP Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire. Maudsley was nicknamed 'Hannibal the Cannibal' after he killed a fellow inmate and was said to have eaten his brain with a spoon. A post-mortem proved that claim untrue. The shocking case has been likened to the fictional killer Hannibal Lecter in the 1991 hit movie 'The Silence of the Lambs,' the disturbing portrayal of a cannibalistic serial killer for which Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar. Maudsley has spent the best part of 47 years either in segregation or solitary, setting a world record of 17,500 consecutive days alone. He has now served 52 years behind bars, and was once described as the most dangerous prisoner in the UK penal system. After killing three fellow inmates, he was deemed such a risk that he had to stick his feet out of a gap at the bottom of his cell door to have his toenails clipped. In a wide-ranging, hour-long interview, he spoke about his life behind bars, how he has found love for the first time with his partner Loveinia MacKenney, and why he believes that he should be locked up for life. He told the Mirror: "I have to be honest and say that if I had the opportunity to harm a sex offender then I would do so. If I met someone who had sexually abused me, I would do my best to kill them. "When I went back to Liverpool, I had the desire to kill both my parents, and then I had the desire to harm myself. I wanted to get my own back, including on my father, and I visualised killing my parents." Parents' nicknames Maudsley, one of 12 children, told his prison psychologist Dr Bob Johnson, also interviewed by the Mirror, that his father abused him and locked him in a cupboard under the stairs at the family home. Known as 'Uncle Bob' to his family, Maudsley added: "We called them the drunk, and the witch. We referred to them by those names rather than as mother and father. "I do have the possibility within myself to kill again, but with therapy, I think that I could overcome that." Maudsley killed two people in one day Prison barbers refused to enter Maudsley's cell in Wakefield jail after he killed two inmates there on the same day in 1977. He told a prison guard, "You'll be two down on the roll call," after walking away from his victims' bodies. He grew his hair and beard long, and refused to co-operate with prison staff. A Perspex wall had to be installed in his 18 ft by 15 ft wide cell so he could not throw liquids or missiles at his guards. That again led to comparisons with the cell that held the fictitious killer Hannibal Lecter. "On the high security unit at Wakefield, when they built them, the cell door opened flush to the wall," Maudsley recalled. "About two feet in front of the cell door, there was a barred gate with Perspex so I could not throw anything at the guards when they entered. "It was like a normal cell except down the centre of it, there was a TV shared with the cell next door. "It had wires connected to speakers inside our cells. We had to flip the speaker, there was a diagonal screen so we could then watch the TV. "I was not in a Perspex box but it did have the Perspex wall. For a long time I just had a mattress and a pot to pee in. "I would have to put my feet through a gap in the door for the officers to cut my toenails. "For 12-13 months I did not shave or cut my hair, and yes, I was like the Wild Man of Borneo." Charlie Bronson He laughs but adds: "It was psychological. I thought that if you want to treat me like an animal, I will act like one. "I am refusing all prison food at the moment. I buy whatever I can get from the prison shop in protest at the way I am being treated. "That is about the refusal of my visits, my conditions overall." For many years at Wakefield, the notorious prisoner Charlie Bronson was his 'next door neighbour' and they shared the TV in their high-security cells. "They (cells) were mirror images of each other. We could talk to each other through the windows," added Maudsley. "But we did not really get on. "He was a narcissist, he always had to be top dog, trying to put me down at every opportunity to establish dominance. "We had a falling-out over what programme to watch one night. So I asked a prison guard to open the gap for the TV and I put my foot through it. "Charlie was not very happy about that." Maudsley says his treatment at Whitemoor has been 'sinister'. "They believed the stories in the newspapers and books," he added. "They thought I was dangerous, then their treatment became more sinister. "They put me on the punishment yard, that is the thing that gets to me. "You cannot see anything, the walls are so high, there is no pond, it is sterile. "I can hear the other prisoners laughing and joking with each other. "It was the prison staff who got sick of that regime. They got bored with it." Maudsley, Prisoner A9888AA, was first sent to Broadmoor in 1974 for the manslaughter of child sex offender John Farrell. He killed another patient, a convicted child molester, at the high-security hospital in 1976. He was then moved to Wakefield, where he murdered two of his fellow inmates, both described as child sex offenders. He is unapologetic about the deaths of any of his victims. Gogglebox When he last tasted freedom at the age of 21 in 1974, Harold Wilson had just succeeded Edward Heath as Prime Minister, a loaf of white bread cost 14p and Paper Lace were at No 1 with 'Billy, Don't Be A Hero'. He is fighting to see Loveinia and has not had a visit since Feb. 2025. He is desperate to meet her for the first time after almost five years of correspondence and phone calls. He claims visit requests since his transfer to Whitemoor from Wakefield in April, 2025, have been refused. "The denial of visits has added to my isolation, there is no doubt about that," he said. "I am locked in my cell for 22 and a half hours per day, getting only 75 minutes to exercise and shower. "I always put the radio on in the morning and listen to Magic Classical. I love classical music. I watch TV. "Now I get 28 channels. My favourite show is Gogglebox, and I like The Chase with Bradley Walsh, Pointless, and Countdown. "I watch them, to keep my mind occupied and active so I don't start to deteriorate." 'I see the whole life term as justified' Despite early prisoner release, he insisted: "I want to spend the rest of my life behind bars to pay for what I have done. "I see the whole life term as justified for my crimes. The way I cope is that every time I wake up in the morning I think, 'It is a new day'. "It may be like what I have experienced before, but there may be something different." After spending almost his entire adult life in solitary confinement, he finds joy in a wisp of a breeze coming through his cell window. He would love to experience 'winter, autumn, spring, and summer again'. "To feel the wind when it blows through my window at night is fantastic," he said. "To feel the sun on your skin, it is the little things that you miss." The last time the outside world saw him, he was in his 20s during the filming of a BBC documentary. He says that he now looks like the late American country singer Kenny Rogers, due to his clipped white beard and hair. He loves Schubert's "Ave Maria". "It is beautiful," he says. "When you listen to that, you are no longer in the prison cell, you could be anywhere in the world. "Mozart also did some beautiful things. A pop record can take me back to my childhood. "For me, it is the Rolling Stones rather than the Beatles. " Given the chance to taste freedom, he would live on an island with Londoner Loveinia, 71, a mum-of-one. With her, he has found love for the first time in his life. "With my parents, there was no love," he says. "It has given me hope and for as long as we are alive, we will both have each other and give each other strength. The love we share keeps us going, it is the first time I have ever loved someone in the way that I love her." Psychiatrist Bob Johnson, 89, who treated Maudsley in Parkhurst back in the 1980s, said: "I would sit alone with him in his cell and we'd discuss our favourite composer Schubert. "It would be far better to use his intelligence and get him working, he could have earned thousands in compensation to be paid to the victims' families. "I believe that he would not have killed again with the help of our sessions. What he has had since is institutional sadism." In the Hollywood film 'The Shawshank Redemption,' the Morgan Freeman character Ellis 'Red' Redding is asked what he would say if he could speak to his younger self, before he committed his crimes. Maudsley was asked the same question. He replied: "It is difficult because there are so many thanks that I could say to that 20-year-old. "The main thing, irrespective of what happened, is that I had the strength to get up. I know inwardly that I would have the strength to keep going." There is no regret for his 52 years behind bars. Unlike Red in the film, he has no desire to change: "The people I killed did not see their victims as human, in a sense I was a piece of meat. "I treated them the same, and got my revenge that way. If I say that I should not have done that, the years in prison would be worthless."