Robert Maudsley, 71, was removed from his famous ‘glass cage’ in Wakefield and is now being held in Whitemoor jail in Cambridgeshire, where his family struggle to see him
Fears are growing for Britain’s longest serving prisoner after his hunger strike took a devastating toll on his health.
Robert Maudsley, 71, had his privileges removed and refused food in protest over several weeks. But it has ‘pushed him to the edge’ after he was taken out of his specially built ‘glass cage’ in Wakefield, the jail in West Yorkshire nicknamed ‘Monster Mansion’, and transferred 125 miles away. It means his brothers Paul and Kevin will struggle to visit from their homes on Merseyside.
And he has lost some of the privileges which made his solitary confinement more bearable after 46 years alone in his cell.
Maudsley, a quadruple killer nicknamed “Hannibal the Cannibal’ was once seen as the UK’s most dangerous prisoner. The Mirror told how he found love with Loveinia Grace Mackenney, 69, who writes to him regularly.
He is the UK’s longest serving prisoner after 51 years behind bars. He was moved to Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire on April 8, apparently after a row over his Play station in his cell.
Londoner Loveinia believes he is ‘seriously ill’ following his latest letter to her, dated April 21.
She said: “They have taken away his privileges. His latest letter to me is so different from the ones from Wakefield. I am really worried about him.”
He is on F wing at Whitemoor in a unit specifically designed for inmates with personality disorders.
“His regime is more restricted and he seems defeated, he usually pours his heart out, this latest letter was awful,” added Loveinia. “The hunger strike was dangerous for him, it went on for several weeks and at 71 years of age, that has pushed him to the edge.
“This is the system and what it has done to him, it is rotten to the core. The prison service is failing in its duty of care to him.” Maudsley told her that he was keeping a copy of the letter. It was signed formally, and did not use his usual terms of endearment.
Instead Maudsley told her: ‘I have a hard written copy for my files”. She added: “I have boxes of letters from him but he has never written anything like this before. “Paul and Kevin his brothers will not be able to get there because he is so far away now so he is losing his family time too.
“He is far less likely to get visits and yet again they are taking his rights away.
‘He is a totally different person, there are no feelings there. He told me that his rights are being curtailed; he has nothing to look forward to if his brothers cannot go and see him.
“He is a human being and he needs that. What are they trying to do to him? I felt totally alone before we found each other. People say he is a monster, but I know that is not the case. “He was targeted when he was very young because he was so vulnerable in the prison system. His family thought that he was dead for many years after he was taken into care.”
First jailed in 1974 for killing child abuser John Farrell, 30, Maudsley has killed three men while behind bars. He warned his captors that he could not bear being alongside rapists and paedophiles on a prison wing before his move to his specially built cell. After killing his last two victims, he was said to have told a Wakefield guard: “There’ll be two short on the roll call.” After the two murders of 1983, he spent 23 hours a day in a cell 18 ft by 15 ft wide, which he described as being buried alive in a concrete coffin. Maudsley had previously killed a fellow patient in Broadmoor secure hospital in 1974. The victim was found with a plastic spoon blade in his ear, which led to his prison nicknames; first ‘Spoons’, then Hannibal the Cannibal, amid claims that he had eaten his victim’s brain. The post mortem made clear that was not the case, but the nickname stuck. His brother Paul, 74, told of a phone call with him in March when Maudsley told him: “Don’t be surprised if this is the last time I call you’. He has since ended his hunger strike. The Prison Service declined to comment.