Inside HMP Wakefield as a new book lifts the lid on the secrets of the prison that houses Britain’s sickest murderers and sex offenders

The British prison houses so much evil that it is nicknamed the Monster Mansion.

From one-legged killer Michael Sams to twisted killer Levi Bellfield, some of the country’s sickest men have languished behind bars at Wakefield Prison.

Now a new book lifts the lid on the prison’s secrets, where perverted Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins pays gangsters for protection, infamous inmate Charles Bronson behaved ‘like a spoiled brat’ and ‘Dr Death’ Harold Shipman once offered medical advice to one of colleagues. prisoners.

It also reveals why sex offender John Worboys lives in the prison’s medical ward and how a Friday The 13th killer makes jokes about his crimes.

And it details the harrowing story of how ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ killer Robert Maudsley earned his nickname.

Authors Jonathan Levi and Dr Emma French spent months researching their book, talking to insiders, officers and ex-prisoners

Jonathan says: “We have prisoners to tell us what it’s like to live and work there, to tell us what these horrible inmates are like – who they see as colleagues in a way – like up close.

“What are they to live with, how are they as cellmates, as people in the same wing.”

Among those serving time in Wakefield is murderer Michael Sams.

He was jailed for life for murdering 18-year-old Julie Dart in 1991 after snatching her off the street.

Six months later, he abducted estate agent Stephanie Slater during a viewing of a property in Birmingham.

Stephanie was handcuffed, shackled and blindfolded as she was kept in a coffin-style box in a bin at Sams’ workshop in Newark, Notts.

After eight days, she was released when a ransom was paid.

Friends say Stephanie, who died of cancer aged 50 in 2017, never got over her ordeal.

Sams, 82, was denied parole last year — and makes a living complaining about everything in prison.

A prison officer told the authors: “I remember a particularly funny time.

“He came to the office to complain about his mattress.

“Imagine the scene, Michael Sams, he’s at the window on one leg, complaining about the state of the mattress and the fact that he couldn’t sleep and it was unfair and inhumane and all these things against what he did to the poor his victims. .

“So this cleaning officer said, ‘Listen, kid, you want to try sleeping in a freaking trash can.’

“And Christ Almighty I almost choked on my coffee.

“She looked at him and left.”

Ian Huntley, who killed ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambs, in 2002, was held in Wakefield until 2008 when he was transferred after constantly threatening to kill himself.

A prison officer called him a “pathetic individual”, saying: “I can’t say anything nice about him because there was nothing nice.

“He was just very needy, always suicidal.

“It was such a wet lettuce.”

Other notorious prisoners who have spent time there are Charles Bronson and Robert Maudsley, who is so volatile that he has been locked in a special glass cell in the prison’s basement since he killed two inmates.

“HUGE TARGET”

Insiders described Bronson, one of Britain’s most violent convicts – who was first jailed in 1974 for armed robbery – as “like a spoiled child” who lived in a cell with a TV, telephone, beautiful furniture and your own bed, with access to the gym and luxury showers.

However, he still “moans and moans when he doesn’t get his way.”

Maudsley is said to have hated Bronson and, before his glass cell was built in 1983, liked to lock him up by playing loud rock music.

Maudsley, 70, earned the nickname “Hannibal the Cannibal” after forcing a spoon into the brain of a child abuser he tortured and garroted at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital in 1977.

One of the first nurses on the scene told Jonathan and Emma: “As Broadmoor nurses tend to be, they couldn’t get into Bob Maudsley’s room.

“The victim, finally put out of her agony with a makeshift tourniquet, was then paraded in front of the cell’s spy hatch for the helpless Broadmoor staff to see.

“When they finally gained access, the victim was partially skinned.

“This flaying probably took place while he was still alive, as his screams echoed through Broadmoor during his ordeal testified.”

The following year, Maudsley murdered two inmates at Wakefield.

Serial sex offender John Worboys has been convicted of assaults, including rape, on 12 women after drugging them in his black taxi.

A fellow inmate says he now lives in Wakefield’s nursing home for his own protection.

He told the authors: “Because of his profile, he is now a huge target.

“He’s hardened by his own shadow, he’s not a fighter or a tough guy, very vulnerable and weak.”

Former prison officer Martin Baker described how murderers and sex lovers would follow the advice of serial killer Harold Shipman, who killed around 250 of his patients.

He said: “When I was dealing with people down at the gym, they would come up with remedies.

“I’d say, ‘Oh yeah, you might have a little torn ligament there or something.’

“They said, ‘Well, Harold Shipman says I have a so-and-so.

“I’d say, ‘Well, he can’t treat you anyway, so I don’t care what he says you have!’

Martin described triple killer Levi Bellfield, whose victims included 13-year-old schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002, as a “typical psychopath”.

“Like a Tramp”

Meanwhile, Shipman was said to be friends with sex predator Peter Moore.

Moore killed four men in North Wales in 1995, but he told the jury at his trial that the murders were carried out by a fictitious lover he named Jason, after the Friday The 13th horror movie killer.

Insiders say he jokes a lot about an attack on a couple he tied up.

He says that when the man begged him not to attack his wife, he said, “Sir, how dare you, I’m not here for her, I want you.”

While inmates have no problem asking people like Shipman for advice, they hate child killers and sex offenders.

Wakefield officers say Roy Whiting, who killed eight-year-old Sarah Payne in 2000, and Mark Bridger, convicted of murdering five-year-old April Jones in Wales in 2012, are the more at risk of attacks from other prisoners.

Whiting, 65, was stabbed in Wakefield earlier this year.

An insider says: “He never leaves his cell.

“He’s just chain smoking.

“He’s wearing prison clothes, he’s like a bum.

“She works in Workshop 8 using a sewing machine.

“He goes to work, comes back and stays in his cell here.

“It’s only a matter of time before he’s killed.”

Former Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins, 46, is buying protection in prison, according to another inmate.

The Welshman was convicted in 2013 after a shocking trial for offenses including the rape of a child.

He was filmed sexually assaulting a little boy the day after the release of the band’s last album, Weapons, in 2012.

He was stabbed and tortured in prison last year.

A prison source tells the authors: “He buys his protection and his recent stabbing was due to a drug debt.

“He is considered a villain among other criminals.

“He has many fans and receives letters from many women.

“He maintains his innocence because of the shame of his crimes.

“He is hated by many, but because HMP Wakefield is mixed, meaning vice presidents and high-level gangsters, drug importers and organized crime, they are just taking money from him for his safety.

“He spent thousands on protection.

“The recent stabbing was a reminder that he has to pay.

“He took a quantity of spice from a prisoner, with a prison value of £150.

“Because Watkins was told he owed £900.

“He was big and refused to pay so he was stabbed in the side with a sharp toilet brush.”

• Inside Wakefield Prison: Life Behind Bars In The Monster Mansion by Jonathan Levi and Emma French (John Blake, £9.99) is out on Thursday.