Why Robert Maudsley, UK’s ‘most dangerous prisoner’, is on hunger strike over PlayStation

Britain’s most dangerous prisoner, Robert Maudsley—infamously known as “Hannibal the Cannibal”—has gone on a hunger strike inside his isolated cell at Wakefield Prison, West Yorkshire, after guards took away his “prized” possessions.

According to the British tabloid Mirror, the notorious serial killer, who has spent 46 years in solitary confinement, is refusing to eat until his PlayStation and TV are returned, as his brother Paul revealed.

The 71-year-old Maudsley, who spends 23 hours a day by himself, locked in an 18ft by 15ft glass cell, is normally “polite,” however, after his recent treatment, the prisoner is now turning furious, Paul added.

But who exactly is Robert Maudsley, and how did he become the UK’s most notorious inmate? Here’s a closer look.

A troubled childhood

Born in June 1953, Robert Maudsley’s early years were marked by relentless abuse and trauma, shaping him into the man he would later become.

According to The Guardian, Maudsley was the fourth child of a Liverpool lorry driver. Before he was even two years old, he and his siblings—Paul, Kevin, and Brenda—were taken into care after being found suffering from “parental neglect.”

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He spent most of his infancy at Nazareth House, a Roman Catholic orphanage in Liverpool run by nuns. Years later, after having eight more children, his parents decided to take their first four back home.

That decision marked the beginning of years of horrific abuse.

His brother Paul recalled, “At the orphanage, we had all got on really well. Our parents would come to visit, but they were just strangers. The nuns were our family… Then our parents took us home and we were subjected to physical abuse. They just picked on us one by one, gave us a beating and sent us off to our room.”

Robert endured the worst of it. “All I remember of my childhood is the beatings,” he once said. “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.”

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Unlike his brothers, Robert had no real memories of his parents. Eventually, social services intervened, placing him in foster care again. His father told the rest of the family that Robert had died.

By 16, Maudsley had drifted to London, developed a severe drug addiction, and spent years in and out of psychiatric hospitals following multiple suicide attempts. He often told doctors that voices in his head urged him to kill his parents.

To fund his drug habit, he worked as a rent boy. In 1973, he committed his first murder after being picked up by child sex abuser John Farrell. When the labourer showed him photographs of children he had abused, Maudsley snapped and garrotted him in a fit of rage.

At 21, in 1974, he was sent to Broadmoor prison for the first time—setting him on a path to becoming Britain’s most infamous inmate.

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‘The brain eater’

Following his arrest, Robert Maudsley’s violent tendencies only escalated within prison walls.

In 1977, he and another inmate carried out a brutal attack on a fellow prisoner, David Francis, convicted of sex offences. According to The Guardian, they tortured their victim for nine hours before finally garrotting him. They then held the lifeless body up to the spy hatch for the guards to see.

One prison officer later described the horrifying scene, saying the man’s head was “cracked open like a boiled egg” with a spoon hanging from it and part of his brain missing.

Following this, false reports emerged in the media that Maudsley had allegedly eaten part of the victim’s brain. He was given the infamous nickname “Hannibal the Cannibal,” with fellow inmates referring to him as “The Brain Eater.”

Already declared unfit either to stand trial or ever be released after the first murder, Maudsley was now considered so dangerous he was sent to ‘Monster Mansion’, officially called Wakefield Prison.

It wasn’t long before his reputation caught up with him. Just weeks after arriving at Wakefield, Maudsley embarked on another killing spree.

In 1978, Maudsley brutally murdered wife-killer Salney Darwood inside his cell, slashing his throat and hiding his body under the bed.

Determined to continue, he had a list of six more targets, but managed to kill only one more—56-year-old Bill Roberts. He stabbed him in the skull before repeatedly smashing his head against a wall. One prisoner later recalled, “They could all see the madness in his eyes.”

After the killings, Maudsley showed no signs of panic. Instead, he walked calmly into the wing office, placed a serrated homemade knife on the desk, and told the guards, “There’ll be two short on the roll call.”

Convicted of murder, he has remained locked in an 18ft-by-15ft glass cell ever since, which he described “like being buried alive in a coffin.”

He spends 23 hours a day in total isolation, with just one hour of exercise under heavy guard, escorted by six officers. No other prisoner in the UK has been subjected to such extreme conditions.

By 2000, his mental state had deteriorated to the point that he begged the courts to allow him to die.

That changed when he was granted small luxuries in his cell, giving him a sense of normality. However, his brother now fears that the recent confiscation of his possessions has undone whatever progress he had made.

The hunger strike

Robert Maudsley’s hunger strike began after a major prison-wide “operational exercise” took place on 26 February. During the operation, officers removed inmates from their cells to conduct a search for a suspected smuggled firearm.

When Maudsley returned, he discovered that his “prized” possessions—including his PlayStation, non-fiction books, and radio—had been confiscated.

“He’s back to how he was 10 years ago when he didn’t have anything to stimulate him. He would just sit there, vegetate, and was in danger of going mad,” his brother Paul told The Mirror. “He loves playing war games and chess on his PlayStation, and he’s always watching old films on TV and reading factual books.”

As per The Guardian, Maudsley possesses a genius-level IQ and has a deep appreciation for classical music, poetry, and art. Friends and family, who affectionately call him “Bob,” describe him as gentle, kind, and highly intelligent.

Paul revealed that Maudsley has vowed not to eat until his belongings are returned. “He’s been refusing food since last Friday, so we are very worried about him. He called me from prison that day, and he sounded angry and anxious. He told me, ‘I’m going on hunger strike, so don’t be surprised if this is the last time I call you,’” Paul said.

Adding to their concerns, Paul believes Maudsley may have also lost access to a phone inside his cell. “He used to call us regularly, but now he’s stopped. We think they must have taken the phone away. Bob is 71 now, so we don’t know how long he can survive without food,” he added.

With input from agencies