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One of Merseyside's most horrific killers is now 40 years in to a life of solitary confinement. But how did Robert Maudsley come to be one of the longest-serving prisoners in Britain - and why will he never be allowed out?

The ECHO looks back at the life and crimes of a troubled and troubling killer who even a hard-bitten former detective says is "a really intelligent, clever guy."

Early life

Robert John Maudsley was born in Speke in June 1953 - at the time the youngest of four siblings.

By the time he was six months old Robert, along with his two older brothers Kevin and Paul and sister Brenda, was placed into care in Nazareth House in Crosby due to their parents not being able to cope.

The Maudsley children spent nine years at the Roman Catholic-run centre being looked after by nuns and went to school in nearby Little Crosby.

Towards the end of those nine years the children's parents George and Jean, who were then living in Toxteth with their fifth child (they were eventually to have seven more), got back in contact.

The three boys were subject to a torrent of abuse from their parents.

Robert, looking back on his childhood, once said: "All I remember of my childhood is the beatings.

"Once I was locked in a room for six months and my father only opened the door to come in to beat me, four or six times a day. He used to hit me with sticks or rods and once he bust a .22 air rifle over my back."

Within 12 months of moving in with their parents, Robert - and Robert alone - was placed with foster parents.

Life spiralling out of control

At 16, Robert fled to London. He took drugs. Lots of them. He tried to commit suicide - twice.

He spent time at psychiatric units and told hospital staff he heard voices ordering him to kill his parents.

The teenager became a rent boy in the capital to help fund his drug habit.

The first killing

One night, while working as a male prostitute, Robert was picked up by labourer John Farrell.

Farrell reportedly showed him pictures of children he had abused so Robert garroted him, stabbed him and smashed him over the head with a hammer.

Robert was held on remand before being declared unfit to stand trial in 1974. He was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Broadmoor Hospital.

The second killing - and the nickname

In 1977, at the age of just 24, Robert and another Broadmoor inmate David Cheeseman dragged convicted paedophile and fellow con David Francis into a room on their ward.

The pair held Francis hostage, barricaded the door and tied him up with flex from a record player.

Over the next nine hours Robert and David Cheeseman tortured Francis before eventually garroting him.

In Geoffrey Wansell's book Pure Evil he writes: "They held his body aloft so that the staff could see him through the spyhole in the door.

"According to legend, Francis's body was found with his head 'cracked open like a boiled egg' and with a spoon hanging out of it.'

"In reality, Maudsley did not eat any part of his victim's brains. One prison officer who worked with him explained that Maudsley had, in fact, made a makeshift weapon by splitting a plastic spoon in half to create a rough pointed weapon.

"He then hilled his fellow Broadmoor inmate by ramming it into his victim's ear, penetrating the brain.

"Inevitably, the plastic spoon blade was covered in gore, which was alleged to be 'his brains'."

Robert was convicted of manslaughter and sent to Wakefield Prison after a trial.

It is understood the victim's autopsy report disproved the brain eating rumours.

The killing spree continues

Within weeks of arriving at Wakefield Prison, Robert killed again - twice.

One Saturday morning in 1978 he lured fellow con Salney Darwood, who was imprisoned for killing his wife, into his cell.

Robert tied a garrote around Darwood's neck and repeatedly smashed his head against the walls by swinging him around.

He hid the body under his bed and reportedly tried to get other inmates to come to his cell but was unsuccessful.

Robert instead went out and made his way into the cell of Bill Roberts who he attacked with a home-made serrated knife - killing him within minutes.

'There will be two short at the next roll call'

After the two killings Robert calmly walked into a prison guard's office, placed the knife down on the table and announced that there would be "two short when it came to the next roll call".

He was convicted of both murders and sentenced to life behind bars at HMP Wakefield - however this was not when he was given the full life term.

It was the Home Secretary later decided Robert should never be released.

Solitary confinement

From the day Robert announced there would be "two short on the roll call", prisoner 467637 has spent 23 hours out of every 24 in his cell.

He has spent the last 40 years, or 14,613 days, in solitary confinement - in one form or another.

He once wrote: “Prison authorities see me as a problem. Their solution has been to put me in solitary confinement and throw away the key, to bury me alive in a concrete coffin. I am left to stagnate, vegetate and regress ....”

In 1983 a specially-constructed cell was made for Robert at HMP Wakefield, where he has been ever since.

The 5.5m x 4.5m space is effectively a two-roomed cage, with bulletproof windows and a team of prison officers dedicated to looking after him.

The cell is also said to bear an uncanny resemblance to the one which housed Hannibal Lecter in ‘Silence of the Lambs’, although it was built seven years before the famous film was released.

To reach the unit a visitor has to pass through 17 locked steel doors and the only furniture is a table and chair, both made from cardboard. The toilet and sink are bolted to the floor while his bed is a concrete slab with a mattress.

The longest ever time spent in solitary confinement by an inmate is Albert Woodfox who was caged in a six-by-nine-foot cell almost continuously for 43 years before being released from a Louisiana jail in 2016.

Application to be allowed to die

In 2000 Robert Maudsley made an application to be allowed to take a cyanide pill rather than face the rest of his life in solitary.

His application to die was made before Mr Justice Maurice Kay at Liverpool High Court. After a five-day hearing it was dismissed.

After the hearing the Liverpool man wrote a letter to a newspaper which read: “What purpose is served by keeping me locked up 23 hours a day? Why even bother to feed me and to give me one hour’s exercise a day? Who actually am I a risk to? 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.

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“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.”

Life for Robert Maudsley now

Former police detective Paul Harrison has interviewed Robert and vividly remembers meeting the killer.

He said: "They've done bad things, and 99.9% deserve to be where they are, but there are those that make you think.

"You've got the image of a monster.

"A horrible, evil man. He's got this reputation that's been perpetuated by the service. I'd got all these preconceived ideas.

"But when we were communicating, I could understand why he did what he did.

"If you didn't know him and what he'd done, and you saw him in the bar...he's a really intelligent, clever guy, who made you smile.

"He'd talk about everyday things. A lot of [serial killers] are really intense and narcissistic and talk about themselves, and I didn't find him like that at all.

"He's the only one where I actually thought: 'Wow – this is something different to any serial killer. Maudsley is different."

Harrison found himself siding with Maudsley in his repeated pleas to relax his solitary confinement.

Paul added: "He doesn't want to get out of prison. He's been in there too long.

"His issues are more about getting equal treatment with other prisoners - getting some fresh air.

"But because he's a special category and a danger to society, it's like he's become legend. Even in the prison system.

"He killed two peadophiles. But I felt real empathy for him. There are people worse than him in the prison system who get away with a lot more.

"I came out and I wrote to the Home Secretary. I wrote to the Queen, everybody, and didn't get a single reply."

Robert's health is reported to have declined in recent years and there are also suggestions that his mental health has deteriorated and he is living out his days waiting to die behind bars.