Serial killer Dennis Nilsen revealed his final victim was his BUDGIE who was killed by passive weed smoke

SERIAL killer Dennis Nilsen revealed his final victim was his budgie who was killed by passive weed smoke.

Nilsen was allowed to keep a budgie named Hamish as a pet in his cell at top security prison HMP Full Sutton near York as part of privileges for good behaviour.

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But he was made to pay for the cage, food and upkeep from his prison bank balance.

He revealed in letters to a pen pal how drugs were easily available in prison.

And Nilsen wrote to another friend in 2005 telling him: “As for the ganja smokers – well, apparently, there’s no business like blow business. I used to have a budgie named Hamish.

“After nine years he started on the final chorus of ‘there’s no business like blow business’ before falling off his perch. I’ve felt guilty about passive smoking ever since.”

The former soldier – who served in the catering corps before getting a job in the civil service on his discharge – added: “Quite a few of us get pissed with liver-crippling draughts of prison hooch, that last vestige of herbal medicine still available to cons.

“The devil makes work for idle thirsts. But given the choice between booze and cannabis, I go for ganja every time.”

Nilsen – who translated books into braille in prison – also whined that Home Office rules prevented him publishing his own life story, Nilsen: History Of A Drowning Man.

The killer complained: “It is frustrating to be translating other people’s autobiographies whilst mine is lying unpublished, banned by the Home Office.”

‘MEAGRE’ WAGE

And in another letter written in 2003, he complains his “meagre” prison wage is £1.50 short, before adding: “Their error which they have not, as yet,  got around to correcting.”

His crimes have been made into a new ITV drama called ‘Des‘ starring David Tennant, which concludes tonight.

Letters written by Nilsen are for sale on US ‘murderbilia’ site Supernaught, selling for up to US$475 (£369) each.

Nilsen – who died of cancer aged 72 in 2018 – claimed his first victim on December 30, 1978, when 14-year-old Stephen Holmes came to his flat, drank until he fell asleep and stayed the night.

A year later, he killed 23-year-old Canadian student Kenneth Ockenden after offering to show him the sights of London.

His final victim was 20-year-old Stephen Sinclair, who went back to Nilsen’s London flat in 1983 with the promise of alcohol and a look at his record collection.

ITV’s Des – a three-part series – will tell the horrific story through Nilsen himself, DCI Peter Jay and biographer Brian Masters.

Nilsen killed 15 men in the 1970s and 80s and was also known as the “kindly killer”.

He was a civil servant working for Manpower Services Commission in job centres around London.

He frequented London pubs targeting men, who were often homeless, and chatting to them before luring them back to his flat where he drowned or strangled them.

The twisted killer would then often sit with their bodies for days.

He committed necrophilic acts on their bodies, then chopped them up and burned, boiled or buried the pieces.