‘Human butchery’: The ‘Eunuch Maker’ jailed for life after torture cult exposed

Warning: This article accommodates excessive violence in opposition to others.

In his north London basement flat, Marius Gustavson castrated and sexually tortured dozens of males for the enjoyment of paying viewers on his Eunuch Maker web site.

Over 4 years, Gustavson made £300,000 (NZ$624,000) from the 22,800 subscribers paying to look at the “human butchery” unfold on their screens.

At the Old Bailey right now, the 46-year-old Norwegian nationwide was jailed for life with a minimal custodial sentence of twenty-two years.

To his on-line followers, he instilled a “cult-like” ambiance, recruiting “like-minded” backstreet surgeons to assist run what a decide known as the “large-scale, dangerous and extremely disturbing enterprise”.

With the assistance of his six co-defendants, he was concerned in a minimum of 30 mutilations – together with one on a 16-year-old boy – utilizing kitchen knives and instruments usually used on livestock.

Many victims had been weak males questioning their identification, whose analysis into gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia had led them into Gustavson’s “spider web”.

One was Jacob Crimi-Appleby, then 17, who was later manipulated into serving to to amputate Gustavson’s leg after “falling down an internet rabbit hole” whereas trying up gender dysphoria on-line.

Caroline Carbery KC, prosecuting, stated it was “remarkable” that the Eunuch Maker web site “operated in plain sight, not on the dark web, accessible to anyone who stumbled upon it and had the inclination and means to pay to view the gruesome footage”. Users had been supplied a “VIP” annual subscription of £100, together with free limitless messaging.

Gustavson sought accountable his sadomasochistic behaviour on the break-up of his marriage in 2016, which he claimed had awoken his beforehand “dormant” physique integrity dysphoria, a uncommon psychological well being situation through which an individual feels a limb or wholesome physique half shouldn’t be a part of their physique.

Neither Gustavson nor any of his co-defendants had been formally recognized.

Many of the “amateur and dangerous” surgical procedures had been carried out on these figuring out as “nullos”, a time period for individuals who don’t want to establish as male or feminine and, in Gustavson’s phrases, wished to “look like a Ken doll, with nothing down there”.

Gustavson is wheelchair-bound after willingly having his penis, leg and nipple amputated. He claimed £18,500 ($38,000) in advantages from the Department of Work and Pensions for his self-inflicted disability.

Yet lots of those that knew him in his previous life, as an LGBT charity campaigner with a ardour for the Eurovision Song Contest, assume he has been unfairly vilified for his crimes.

“He is far from a monster,” Gustavson’s ex-husband advised The Telegraph, talking on situation of anonymity. “I do want people to understand his background and who he is.” He claimed Gustavson had performed a whole lot of “admirable work” in Norway and had been regarded as much as by his fellow charity employees.

Friends and former colleagues described an remoted loner who devoted all his spare time to gay activism in his house metropolis of Drammen, a 45-minute drive southwest of Oslo.

He served because the regional chairman of Norway’s National Association for Lesbian and Gay Liberation (LLH), as soon as the nation’s largest LGBT group, and campaigned for extra intercourse training in faculties.

As the chairman of LLH Buskerud between 2003 and 2008, he hosted “gay weekends” in Drammen for 4 consecutive years and complained about faculty textbooks containing “almost nothing about homosexuality”.

He usually featured in his native paper, the Drammens Tidende, which he used to publicise LGBT occasions hosted by the LLH.

In 2007, he was pictured internet hosting one such occasion, attended by headteachers and college employees, at a lodge in Drammen. He stated on the time: “These professional groups have contact with people who are gay or lesbian. It is important to know how to meet young people who have a different sexual orientation.”

Camilla Lochen, a former member of LLH and co-host of the occasion, described Gustavson as a “big teddy bear”. The assistant supervisor at a mining museum stated: “He lived very much for that cause. My thought was maybe that he was a little miserable. He was a big boy. He had to have something to spend his time on.”

She stated it was “horrible” to study of Gustavson’s crimes within the UK, “because he was a nice guy”.

In April 2005, Gustavson hosted one other LLH occasion at Drammen’s largest secondary faculty, calling for extra homosexual intercourse training within the curriculum.

‘He was a regular colleague’

Gustavson graduated from a enterprise faculty in Drammen in 1996 and shortly afterwards studied at a language faculty in Hastings, East Sussex, receiving an English certificates. He moved between Norway and the UK for a number of years and did odd jobs, together with as a receptionist at a three-star lodge in Torquay, Devon, in 2000.

He had brushes with the legislation in Norway, committing a number of frauds however by no means being jailed. After a 2001 conviction, he labored for Norway’s postal service for a decade. A former colleague described him as a non-public man who was “passionate about LGBT causes” and Eurovision.

The colleague, who didn’t need to be named, stated: “We were just colleagues and did not see each other in spare time. He was a regular colleague, and I think most of us thought he was OK … I don’t think he was spending any free time with his colleagues.”

Around October 2011, Gustavson migrated to Bournemouth, working for Xerox as a buyer care service supervisor till 2015 and later transferring to Finsbury Park, north London.

Even on the peak of his offending, he volunteered to assist co-ordinate Pride marches by central London, appearing as a senior steward between 2016 and 2019 and serving to to register different volunteers. The prosecution admitted it was “impossible” to know the total extent of his offending between 2017 and 2021.

The court docket heard how Gustavson hoarded severed physique components in his freezer and auctioned them on-line, with “clear evidence” of cannibalism in addition to bodily mutilations.

On one event, he grilled a pair of human testicles in a skillet as a part of an “artfully arranged” lunchtime salad with potatoes, pistachios and cashew nuts.

Inculcated ‘cult-like’ ambiance

His crimes got here to gentle solely after one in all his victims went to police, handing them a USB stick containing 5000 WhatsApp messages between him, Gustavson and others, in addition to a recorded interview. Gustavson was accused of utilizing his “coercive nature” on the sufferer.

In a sufferer impression assertion learn to the court docket, the person, who can’t be recognized, stated he was “apoplectic with rage” and wished to kill Gustavson after realising the everlasting harm performed to his physique.

Gustavson had inculcated a “cult-like” ambiance that “mesmerised” his followers, who thought-about him their “unquestionable” chief. He added: “After the barbaric encounters, if I think about them too long I can still feel the physical pain.”

Although Gustavson’s victims had given their “consent” to the procedures and he – in his lawyer’s phrases – merely wished to “put a smile on their faces”, this might not be accepted as a authorized defence.

Under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, an individual can not legally consent to being severely harmed for sexual gratification.

Despite makes an attempt by Gustavson’s co-defendants to argue that most of the surgical procedures had been carried out solely for the psychological good thing about the victims, this was rejected by Judge Mark Lucraft KC, who stated: “I am entirely satisfied that the motivations of all involved were a mix of sexual gratification as well as financial reward.”

Gustavson confirmed little response throughout his three-day sentencing listening to, spending most of his time making copious notes from the confines of Wandsworth jail as he watched proceedings by way of video hyperlink on Friday morning.

His co-defendants – David Carruthers, 61, Janus Atkin, 39, Peter Wates, 67, Ion Valentin Ciucur, 30, Ashley Williams, 32 and Stefan Scharf, 61 – had been jailed for between 4½ and 12 years for their roles within the plot.

In January, Damien Byrnes, 36, and Crimi-Appleby, now 23, had been jailed for amputating Gustavson’s penis and leg. Nathan Arnold, a 48-year-old nurse, was spared jail for eradicating Gustavson’s nipple with a scalpel.

Gustavson, Carruthers, Atkin, Wates and Ciucur pleaded responsible to conspiracy to trigger grievous bodily hurt with intent.

Gustavson pleaded responsible to a variety of additional offences, together with 5 extra counts of inflicting grievous bodily hurt with intent, making an indecent picture of a kid, 4 counts of distributing indecent pictures of a kid, possessing excessive pornographic pictures and possessing legal property.

Williams and Scharf pleaded responsible to inflicting grievous bodily hurt with intent.

Kate Mulholland, a specialist inside the Crown Prosecution Service’s London Complex Casework Unit, stated: “Marius Gustavson ignored the risks of performing unnecessary surgery on vulnerable men for sexual gratification and financial gain. He actively recruited participants through his website and was paid to stream the footage of these barbaric procedures.

“Whilst the victims in this case all seemingly consented to surgeries and amputations, the victim who bravely reported his assault to the police expressed serious regret regarding his procedure and the lasting impact it has had upon him. This clearly emphasises why such practices are unlawful.

“The severity of today’s sentence should act as a warning to others that performing extreme body modifications is against the law, and the CPS won’t hesitate to prosecute these horrendous crimes.”