Serial killer, 66, dubbed ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ tells doctor he is ‘capable of anything’

A serial killer dubbed ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ who spends 23 hours a day alone in solitary confinement has revealed he is ‘capable of anything’ in a chilling tape recorded from his cell.

Robert Maudsley, 66, is Britain’s longest-serving prisoner in solitary at HMP Wakefield, West Yorkshire, having served 41 years for the murder of four men in the 1970s. 

Maudsley committed his first murder in March 1974 when he garrotted John Farrell, 30, who had shown him pictures of abused children after picking him up for sex when he worked as a rent boy.

He was sent to Broadmoor psychiatric hospital in Berkshire before killing a fellow inmate, convicted child molester David Francis, 26, in February 1977.

After this, Maudsley was transfered to high-security Wakefield Prison where a year later he killed two fellow prisoners in one day in July 1978 – Salney Darwood, 46, who had killed his wife, and William Roberts, 55, who sexually assaulted a young girl.

The Liverpool-born serial killer, who has served a total of 42 years in jail, had also done a stint at HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, where he met prison psychiatrist Dr Bob Johnson in 1991.

Dr Johnson said it took him two to three years to get permission to start sessions with him. He added that initially it had been tricky because he would see him in his cell, but from the outset he claimed he told Maudsley that ‘if he frightened him he would be going’.

The sessions lasted two years and in one of them, Maudsley said: ‘I know in the past when I’ve tried to sort of face these things, you know, I’m just capable of doing anything, and that’s why I have got to be cautious’.

He continued to say he believed he was making progress but that the ‘pieces needed to fit’ in order for him to continue on the right path.

In the 1970s Maudsley targeted sex offenders and carried out a wave of vigilante justice, killing three of his victims while in prison.

It was also alleged that he had eaten part of the brain of one of his victims in prison, giving him his nickname ‘Hannibal The Cannibal’.

Maudlsey spends 23 hours a day in his cell in HMP Wakefield in West Yorkshire (file picture)

A new documentary series ‘The Killer In My Family’, which airs tonight on Quest Red at 10pm, reveals how the killer also enjoyed David Attenborough documentaries, art and poetry from his cell.

Letters penned by the killer to his nephew Gavin show part of his character and personality.

His nephew also talks about the moment he realised his uncle was a serial killer, by seeing the story in a newspaper.

Speaking in the documentary, Gavin, said he knew ‘uncle Bob’ was in prison and that he ‘had done wrong’.

Robert Maudsley (pictured above) has served 41 years in solitary confinement in prison for the murder of four people 

‘But it was never explained to me when I was a child what he had done, for obvious reasons.

‘It was when I was around maybe 12, 13 years of age. I was in senior school and one of my friends in class was reading the Daily Mirror or something like that, and there was a double page spread reading ‘Cannibal Maudsley’ with the story and a photograph of him. I knew straight away that that was my uncle Bob.’

Gavin also highlighted how his friends picked up on his uncanny resemblance to his uncle. 

Maudsley is currently serving four life sentences. He remains Britain’s longest serving prisoner, remanded in solitary confinement for over four decades and will remain there for the rest of his life.

The Killer In My Family airs on Quest Red at 10pm tonight (Freeview 38 / Sky 149)