A fraudster whose marriage broke down spiralled into a gruesome, lucrative addiction to extreme body modifications that has now ended in him being jailed for life.
Marius Gustavson, who already had two previous fraud convictions in his native country Norway, descended into a subculture centred around male castration, penis removal and other grisly procedures as he sought “empowerment” at the end of his 11-year marriage in 2016.
Five years on, and a court heard how the 46-year-old had become the mastermind of a “large scale” and “extremely dangerous” enterprise, involving the sharing of sick footage of amputations carried out in people’s homes as well as the trade of “trophy” body parts, some of which he stored in his freezer.
Gustavson’s ‘Eunuch maker’ pay-per-view website was operating on an unprecedented scale, with a staggering 22,841 registered users and raking in almost £300,000 between 2017 and 2021 – the year he, the ringleader, and some of his acolytes were arrested, and the site shut down.
At the Old Bailey on Thursday, Gustavson, of Haringey, north London, who had previously admitted charges including conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 22 years.
Sentencing Gustavson and six other men who had admitted their part in the conspiracy, HHJ Mark Lucraft KC said their “grisly and gruesome” actions amounted to “little more than human butchery” in some cases, and concluded that all were motivated by “a mix of sexual gratification as well as financial reward”.
Gustavson had not participated in any body modification before the end of his marriage, Rashvinderjeet Panesar, defending him, previously told the court. It had “kept him stable”, and its breakdown was a “trigger” for his extreme activities.
“When it came to an end it sent him into a spiral,” Mr Panesar said. “He had a desire to be the architect of his own body. His modification led him to feelings of empowerment. It appears at face value to be something that’s become an addiction for him.”
The lawyer said Gustavson had also been diagnosed with body identity integrity disorder, which accounted for his desire to have body parts removed.
Extreme body modification is linked to a subculture where men become “nullos”, short for genital nullification, by having their penis and testicles removed.
Prosecutor Caroline Carberry KC said Gustavson was linked to at least 29 procedures: “There is also, we say, clear evidence of cannibalism.”
According to court documents, body parts were put up for auction online with a “buy it now” button. Subscribers paid to access videos on the Eunuch Maker website, which operated “in plain sight”, not on the dark web, with varying levels of membership from “free” to “VIP” which cost £100.
Ms Carberry said the defendants used a wide variety of tools such as clamps used for animal castration.
The court heard Gustavson offered to sell the severed penis of one of his victims for hundreds of pounds. His arrest came after he used a red hot iron to brand a man’s calf with the letters EM – for ‘Eunuch maker’.
In a victim impact statement, the man who complained to police, described Gustavson as a “lunatic” who had put together a “slick, professional website”. There were 13 victims of the conspiracy overall, the youngest of whom was 16 years old.
The police investigation led to the arrest of 10 men in London, Scotland and South Wales.
During raids, officers found Gustavson’s penis in a drawer in his home four years after it had been amputated. Gustavson also had to have his leg amputated in February 2019 after getting a man to freeze it and claimed £18,000 in disability payments up until 2021.
Gustavson now wishes to return to his native Norway, where he believes his views are more likely to be accepted, Mr Panesar told the court.
He had moved to the UK from Norway in 2012, having already been convicted twice of fraud offences.
Around a decade later, Gustavson pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit grievous bodily harm, five counts of grievous bodily harm with intent, one count of making an indecent photograph of a child, one count of distributing an indecent photograph of a child and possession of criminal property contrary to Section 329(1) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
The other six defendants had admitted conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm.
Peter Wates, 67, of Purley, Surrey, a retired former member of the Royal Society of Chemists, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Janus Atkin, 38, of Newport, Gwent, who had been completing a veterinary course, was jailed for 12 years.
Ion Ciucur, 30, of Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, received five years and eight months imprisonment, and Stefan Scharf, 61, of no fixed address, was sentenced to four and a half years in jail.
David Carruthers 61, and Ashley Williams, 32, of Newport, Gwent, were jailed for 11 years and four years, six months respectively.
In January, three men were sentenced after admitting causing grievous bodily harm to Gustavson.
Damien Byrnes, 36, from north London, was jailed for five years for removing Marius Gustavson’s penis with a kitchen knife on video at his home on February 18 2017.
Jacob Crimi-Appleby, 23, from Epsom in Surrey, was jailed for three years and eight months for freezing Gustavson’s leg leading to the need for it to be amputated in February 2019.
Nurse Nathan Arnold, 48, from South Kensington, west London, received a two-year suspended sentence for the partial removal of Gustavson’s nipple with a scalpel in the summer of 2019.
