Marius Gustavson recruited “like-minded” backstreet surgeons to help run what an Old Bailey judge called a “large-scale, dangerous and extremely disturbing enterprise”. Photo / Facebook
Warning: This article contains extreme violence against others.
In his north London basement flat, Marius Gustavson castrated and sexually tortured dozens of men for the enjoyment of paying viewers on his Eunuch Maker website.
Over four years, Gustavson made £300,000 (NZ$624,000) from the 22,800 subscribers paying to watch the “human butchery” unfold on their screens.
At the Old Bailey today, the 46-year-old Norwegian national was jailed for life with a minimum custodial sentence of 22 years.
To his online followers, he instilled a “cult-like” atmosphere, recruiting “like-minded” backstreet surgeons to help run what a judge called the “large-scale, dangerous and extremely disturbing enterprise”.
With the help of his six co-defendants, he was involved in at least 30 mutilations – including one on a 16-year-old boy – using kitchen knives and tools normally used on livestock.
Many victims were vulnerable men questioning their identity, whose research 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 helping to amputate Gustavson’s leg after “falling down an internet rabbit hole” while looking up gender dysphoria online.
Caroline Carbery KC, prosecuting, said it was “remarkable” that the Eunuch Maker website “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 were offered a “VIP” annual subscription of £100, along with free unlimited messaging.
Gustavson sought to blame his sadomasochistic behaviour on the break-up of his marriage in 2016, which he claimed had awoken his previously “dormant” body integrity dysphoria, a rare mental health condition in which a person feels a limb or healthy body part should not be part of their body.
Neither Gustavson nor any of his co-defendants were formally diagnosed.
Many of the “amateur and dangerous” surgeries were carried out on those identifying as “nullos”, a term for people who do not wish to identify as male or female and, in Gustavson’s words, wanted 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 benefits from the Department of Work and Pensions for his self-inflicted disability.
Yet many of those who knew him in his past life, as an LGBT charity campaigner with a passion for the Eurovision Song Contest, think he has been unfairly vilified for his crimes.
“He is far from a monster,” Gustavson’s ex-husband told The Telegraph, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I do want people to understand his background and who he is.” He claimed Gustavson had done a lot of “admirable work” in Norway and had been looked up to by his fellow charity workers.
Friends and former colleagues described an isolated loner who dedicated all his spare time to gay activism in his home city of Drammen, a 45-minute drive southwest of Oslo.
He served as the regional chairman of Norway’s National Association for Lesbian and Gay Liberation (LLH), once the country’s largest LGBT group, and campaigned for more sex education in schools.
As the chairman of LLH Buskerud between 2003 and 2008, he hosted “gay weekends” in Drammen for four consecutive years and complained about school textbooks containing “almost nothing about homosexuality”.
He regularly featured in his local paper, the Drammens Tidende, which he used to publicise LGBT events hosted by the LLH.
In 2007, he was pictured hosting one such event, attended by headteachers and school staff, at a hotel in Drammen. He said at 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 event, described Gustavson as a “big teddy bear”. The assistant manager at a mining museum said: “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 said it was “horrible” to learn of Gustavson’s crimes in the UK, “because he was a nice guy”.
In April 2005, Gustavson hosted another LLH event at Drammen’s largest secondary school, calling for more gay sex education in the curriculum.
Gustavson graduated from a business school in Drammen in 1996 and shortly afterwards studied at a language school in Hastings, East Sussex, receiving an English certificate. He moved between Norway and the UK for several years and did odd jobs, including as a receptionist at a three-star hotel in Torquay, Devon, in 2000.
He had brushes with the law in Norway, committing several frauds but never being jailed. After a 2001 conviction, he worked for Norway’s postal service for a decade. A former colleague described him as a private man who was “passionate about LGBT causes” and Eurovision.
The colleague, who did not want to be named, said: “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 customer care service manager until 2015 and later moving to Finsbury Park, north London.
Even at the peak of his offending, he volunteered to help co-ordinate Pride marches through central London, acting as a senior steward between 2016 and 2019 and helping to register other volunteers. The prosecution admitted it was “impossible” to know the full extent of his offending between 2017 and 2021.
The court heard how Gustavson hoarded severed body parts in his freezer and auctioned them online, with “clear evidence” of cannibalism as well as bodily mutilations.
On one occasion, he grilled a pair of human testicles in a skillet as part of an “artfully arranged” lunchtime salad with potatoes, pistachios and cashew nuts.
His crimes came to light only after one of his victims went to police, handing them a USB stick containing 5000 WhatsApp messages between him, Gustavson and others, as well as a recorded interview. Gustavson was accused of using his “coercive nature” on the victim.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the man, who cannot be identified, said he was “apoplectic with rage” and wanted to kill Gustavson after realising the permanent damage done to his body.
Gustavson had inculcated a “cult-like” atmosphere that “mesmerised” his followers, who considered him their “unquestionable” leader. 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 words – simply wished to “put a smile on their faces”, this could not be accepted as a legal defence.
Under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, a person cannot legally consent to being seriously harmed for sexual gratification.
Despite attempts by Gustavson’s co-defendants to argue that many of the surgeries had been performed solely for the psychological benefit of the victims, this was rejected by Judge Mark Lucraft KC, who said: “I am entirely satisfied that the motivations of all involved were a mix of sexual gratification as well as financial reward.”
Gustavson showed little reaction during his three-day sentencing hearing, spending most of his time making copious notes from the confines of Wandsworth prison as he watched proceedings via video link 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 – were jailed for between 4½ and 12 years for their roles in the plot.
In January, Damien Byrnes, 36, and Crimi-Appleby, now 23, were jailed for amputating Gustavson’s penis and leg. Nathan Arnold, a 48-year-old nurse, was spared jail for removing Gustavson’s nipple with a scalpel.
Gustavson, Carruthers, Atkin, Wates and Ciucur pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.
Gustavson pleaded guilty to a range of further offences, including five additional counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, making an indecent image of a child, four counts of distributing indecent images of a child, possessing extreme pornographic images and possessing criminal property.
Williams and Scharf pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Kate Mulholland, a specialist within the Crown Prosecution Service’s London Complex Casework Unit, said: “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.”
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