IT’S the notorious prison nicknamed “Monster Mansion” due to housing some of Britain’s most twisted serial killers, paedophiles and crooks.
Nearly half of the 750 offenders inside HMP Wakefield – which is a Category A male prison – are serving life sentences.
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The West Yorkshire lock-up has a fierce reputation, which former senior prison officer Jo Taylor can attest to having spent five years working with the lags there.
During her stint, she was charged with taking care of infamous criminals like cannibal Robert Maudsley, whose wrath she risked incurring with an innocent act, and also his arch rival Charles Bronson.
Others the 60-year-old met included Soham murderer Ian Huntley, paedophile ring leader Sidney Cooke and Millie Dowler’s killer Levi Bellfield.
To escape the prison’s “draining, negative energy”, Jo took voluntary redundancy in 2012 and now works as an SMP artist – someone who tattoos fake hair – but more than a decade on bears the scars of her time at the prison.
Jo, who recently spoke at true crime convention CrimeCon, tells The Sun: “I have always looked behind me since I worked at HMP Wakefield.
“Wherever I go outside I’m constantly looking around and behind me, I never walk with headphones in or my head in a phone. I always have to be alert.
“I used to work with dangerous prisoners and so now could be at risk because I may not recognise a former inmate, someone who has been let out. They may look like a normal person to me and that’s always terrifying.”
Jo reveals what it was like to work with some of the most fabled names in “Monster Mansion” and the surprising offender she considers “the worst”.
Risked cannibal’s fury
Robert Maudsley was dubbed the cannibal killer and compared to Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs after claims emerged that he ate part of his victim’s brain.
Maudsley garrotted first victim John Farrell, 30, in 1974 after being shown images of children he molested.
Later Maudsley killed three more inmates – one in Broadmoor, two in Wakefield – who he claimed were rapists, paedophiles or sex offenders.
He got his sinister nickname amid claims he used a spoon to eat part of the brain of David Francis, the convicted paedophile he murdered in his cell in Broadmoor after torturing him for nine hours.
He is Britain’s longest-serving criminal in solitary confinement, having spent 45 years there, and is kept under 23-hours-a-day surveillance at Wakefield, only allowed out for an hour’s exercise per day.
To reach him guards have to go through seven steel doors, which has reinforced comparisons with ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ who in the film was held in a cage made from reinforced glass.
But according to Jo, it’s not as extreme as it sounds. She says: “He’s on the segregation unit. He’s not in a glass cage like Hannibal was or anything but you are given a warning about him.
“I remember coming onto the wing once and I was whistling. The officer quickly told me, ‘You can’t whistle! It upsets Maudsley. His mum used to lock him in a cupboard and whistle so if he hears that, he goes mad’.
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“Apparently Charles Bronson always used to whistle to wind him up and Maudsley would annoy him back by playing rock music. They seemed to hate each other. ”
She tells us it takes six officers and one senior officer to let Maudsley out, which she thinks is a bit excessive, and claims the crook “had a list apparently of all the nonces he wanted to kill”.
While Jo wasn’t there when he killed two in Wakefield, she recalls the story: “He admitted to what he did.
“He went to the cell door and said, ‘’Ere boss, you’re gonna have two off your roll check!’ They went into instant lockdown and they found the bodies under the bed.”
Worst lag
Of all the despicable figures she’s crossed paths with in ‘Monster Mansion’ one name sticks out more that the rest… Michael Donovan.
He was the co-conspirator of Karen Matthews, dubbed Britain’s most hated mum, who kidnapped daughter Shannon and held her hostage for 24 days in a dingy flat.
It was part of a scheme to claim a £50,000 reward for her safe return but she was found tethered and drugged in Donovan’s home by police.
He would sit there sniveling, hunched over in his wheelchair, he would say ‘Morning Miss Taylor’ but I could never interact with him. Not someone like that.
Jo Taylor, former senior prison officer
Recalling time with him, Jo sighs before adding: “He was hard work.
“In my opinion, he was pretending not to be all there and would defecate in his cell.
“He would do it to get to the health care ward because it was easier up there and unlocked all the time.
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“He would always say, ‘I didn’t know anything, she made me do it’, referring to Karen Matthews, and would talk in this childish way to make people feel sorry for him.
“I remember him saying ‘I was fri-kened (sic)’, meaning frightened. He would use this baby-like talk and would be classed as a victim because of his personality.
“He was unlike anyone else. He’d been transferred from Leeds where I believed had a tooth knocked out.
“We needed to watch him because I knew he was going to get picked on.
“He was hard work and he would s*** in the wardrobe. Often we’d tell him to clean it up himself.”
She confirmed Donovan was the “worst prisoner” she had to deal with.
Complaining killer
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Jo says there’s one unifying detail about nearly all of the serious criminals she interacted with: “They all claim to be innocent.”
She continues: “Everyone in prison says, ‘It wasn’t me’. It’s like in films when they say, ‘What are you in for?’ I didn’t do it’, ‘Yeah, we’re all innocent in here.’”
But the worst for making that claims was Levi Bellfield, who murdered three including schoolgirl Millie Dowler, 13.
Jo says he “would always try to find me” to complain about being set-up.
She continued: “He was saying he was stitched up and police were trying to get him done for the killings when he wasn’t there.”
If he was in a line up I would have never picked him, he looked like a friendly normal guy, not a killer.
Jo Taylor
Jo had several one-on-one interactions with Belfield when he was called into her office but insisted “he didn’t intimidate me”.
“I’ve seen bigger. Levi is not that big,” she added.
‘Snivelling monster’
While Jo insists she treated all prisoners like human beings, her contempt for Sidney Cooke – the suspected serial killer dubbed “Britain’s most notorious paedophile” – was clear.
The 97-year-old was suspected of murdering up to 20 young boys including a seven-year-old during the Seventies and Eighties but was only convicted of three.
He was the leader of a paedophile ring and pleaded guilty to four charges of rape, three of indecent assault and one count of buggery in 1999.
Jo recalled meeting him: “He would sit there sniveling, hunched over in his wheelchair, he would say ‘Morning Miss Taylor’ but I could never interact with him. Not someone like that.
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“He was vile and did such despicable, despicable things to children. He was a horrible nonce. While I was never rude. I didn’t speak to people like him.”
Deceptive killer
John Worboys – known as the ‘Black Cab Rapist’ – was a serial sex offender who was convicted for vile attacks on 16 women between 2000 and 2008.
Jo says she was surprised when she met him as his “friendly” demeanour masked the evil crimes he committed.
“I remember thinking, he looked like the friendliest and safest person and would have trusted him if I get into his taxi,” she explained.
“If he was in a line up I would have never picked him, he looked like a friendly normal guy, not a killer.
Monster Mansion’s most notorious inmates
HMP Wakefield is known as ‘Monster Mansion’ – and for very good reason.
Over the decades, the lock-up has held some of Britain’s most despicable and famous crooks including Charles Bronson, Ian Huntley and Colin Ireland.
While some of the notorious lags have since been transferred to other prisons, here we look at the known current inmates.
- Jeremy Bamber – convicted for murdering his adoptive parents, sister and sister’s two sons in 1985.
- Sidney Cooke – Britain’s most notorious paedophile, who was convicted of the murder and rape of three and pleaded guilty to multiple more sexual offences
- Mick Philpott – caused the death of his six children after setting his house on fire in 2012
- Ian Watkins – former Lost Prophets lead singer who was convicted of multiple sexual offences, some involving children and infants
- Roy Whiting – Sarah Payne’s killer who also molested and abducted another child
“He was chatty with a warm and friendly face but was evil.”
Suspicious suicide
HMP Wakefield held the UK’s worst serial killer Dr Harold Shipman, who killed an estimated 284 people during a 30-year period.
The murderer, who received a whole life order, took his own life before Jo moved to the prison but she recalls colleagues’ suspicions about his death.
Jo heard claims that Shipman killed himself in a bid to assure his wife had financial security after he was stripped of his NHS pension.
“Shipman was there and spent time in the segregation unit before my time,” she explained in the book Inside Wakefield Prison.
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“He only killed himself because of some date that if he died, his wife would get the pension. He’d been taken off suicide watch when it happened.”
Obsessed with ex
Jo recalls spending time with Soham murderer Ian Huntley, who killed 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman and hid their bodies, and says he acquired a “highly-skilled job” behind bars.
“He was on constant watch because there was a threat that he would top himself. I spent 12 hours with him while he was translating books into braille,” she says.
“It was his job in there. I sat with him but I didn’t want to speak to him. I did my job and was polite but tried to avoid chatting.
“I remember him saying, ‘You’re new aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Not in the job, I was at [HMP] New Hall’ and he was like, ‘Oh that’s where she was. Maxine [Carr, his ex-girlfriend].’
“He was wrong. It was her mother who was there for perverting the course of justice but he kept on rabbiting on about Maxine.”
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‘Sex mad’ officer
During her 15 years working in prisons, Jo spent time in six different lock-ups including HMP Wakefield and HMP New Hall and says young offenders jails are “the most dangerous”.
She took voluntary redundancy after five years at ‘Monster Mansion’ in 2012 and has since retrained to tattoo fake hair onto people, so far working on more than 300 people.
Jo, who runs Follicle Illusion Bespoke Scalp Micro Pigmentation, says those working in the prison service unfairly receive a lot of flack.
She explains: “It’s a damn hard job and not a lot of support for people working there and the vast majority work really hard to keep prisoners safe under difficult circumstances.”
Jo is frustrated by some high-profile individuals who have tarnished the service’s reputation – including Linda De Sousa Abreu, 30, who was filmed having sex with an inmate in HMP Wandsworth.
She adds: “What that girl did was so dangerous. If they managed to get a hold of her keys, she could have risked the lives of staff and vulnerable inmates.
“She abused her position of power and is obviously sex mad. It was terrible and very risky thing to have done.
“I believe change is desperately needed in the prison system. They are hiring people who are too young that don’t have enough life experiences and are not paying them enough.”
Jo Taylor spoke at CrimeCon London earlier this month and appears in the book Inside Wakefield Prison: Life Behind Bars in the Monster Mansion. To find out more about Jo’s SMP work visit: www.follicleillusion.com.
