Until his death, he and I would regularly correspond with one another, usually about ordinary things. In my view, there was nothing he said that you could count on as being authentic. He initially claimed to have murdered 15 people, before carrying out cannibalism and necrophilia, but then denied that afterwards.
In my opinion, Nilsen was more concerned about managing his public image than the crimes he had committed. I know it sounds dull, but it was my job I had to compartmentalize and be psychologically robust. Nilsen was a killer of young men, which I was when I met him, so, I think he simply regarded me as someone nice to talk to, a distraction from being locked up. He reminded me of a weedy geography teacher who would struggle to keep control of his class, he wasn't this extraordinary figure at all. His case was all over the papers, so I knew a great deal about him, but our first meeting was completely banal and ordinary. He was a serial killer convicted of six counts of murder and two attempted murders. I came across a wide variety of offenders, but the first ever murderer I met was a man called Dennis Nilsen. Working with Dennis Nilsenīritish serial killer Dennis Nilsen being escorted from prison in a police van in November 1983. They made sure I could survive what really was a baptism of fire. I was put into the prison's staff team, so even though I was this 23-year-old, wet behind the ears, university graduate, some of my colleagues took me under their wing and socialized me. It was very odd, but I survived because I was good at rugby. I finished my studies on a Friday, and by the following Monday I was assistant governor under training at Wormwood Scrubs, a Category B men's prison in west London. So, after completing my PhD and leaving university, I sat my civil service exams and joined a scheme which recruited people like me directly to become prison governors. I thought: "What is happening here, how can these same cases, in the same city, have such different outcomes?" I could see the situations were different, but the actions were exactly comparable. Clearly, I felt it had something to do with class. I wanted to know how my violence, in my context, led to people slapping me on the back, while his violence, in his context, led inexorably to him going to jail. Prior to taking up an academic appointment, he was a governor at various prisons across the U.K.
David Wilson is an author and Professor Emeritus of Criminology at Birmingham City University.
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