Britain’s most dangerous serial killer, Robert Maudsley ‘sets world record for time spent in solitary confinement’ after spending more than 16,400 days in his private underground cell

Robert Mawdsley, one of the UK’s most infamous serial killers has set a new world record for solitary confinement. 

The notorious killer has now spent a record of 16,400 consecutive days in isolation in HMP Wakefield, according to The Mirror.

The 69-year-old has been in solitary confinement in a glass cell since 1979 after killing three people in prison while serving a life sentence for the murder of John Farrell in 1974. As a result, he’s been categorised as the UK’s most dangerous murderer.

Maudsley was just 21 when he was locked up for the murder of 30-year-old John Farrell.

The killer – who earned the nickname ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ following false reports he ate one of his victim’s brains, said he is ‘happy and content in solitary’ and warned that he will kill again if ever released.

In a Channel 5 documentary ‘HMP Wakefield: Evil Behind Bars,’ Maudsley’s nephew Gavin, 40, from Liverpool reveals how his softly spoken, ‘well-read’ uncle is content to be locked away from the rest of the world. 

Maudsley has been repeatedly turned down for requests to spend time with other people, spending his days in a specially built cell. 

In 2021, he lost an appeal to spend Christmas with other people and was told that he will be incarcerated in his ‘glass box’ until he dies. He will live out the rest of his days in an 18-foot by 15-foot cell, which was built especially for him in 1983 and is protected by bulletproof glass. 

He spends 23 hours of each day in the cell, sleeping on a concrete slab and using a toilet and sink which are bolted to the floor.

He once described spending the majority of his day in his small space as ‘like being buried alive in a coffin’. He also has a table and chair made of compressed cardboard.   

Jailed 49 years ago, The Mirror reports that Mawdsley is believed to be Britain’s longest-serving prisoner after Moors murderer Ian Brady, who served 51 years. He died in 2017.

US prisoner Albert Woodfox, who died last year, held the world record for solitary confinement at 43 years, before his release in 2016.