From fraudster to divorcee to eunuch maker: The makings of mastermind behind ‘human butchery’ enterprise | EUROtoday

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A fraudster whose marriage broke down spiralled right into a ugly, profitable habit to excessive physique modifications that has now led to him being jailed for all times.

Marius Gustavson, who already had two earlier fraud convictions in his native nation Norway, descended right into a subculture centred round male castration, penis elimination and different grisly procedures as he sought “empowerment” on the finish of his 11-year marriage in 2016.

Five years on, and a courtroom heard how the 46-year-old had develop into the mastermind of a “large scale” and “extremely dangerous” enterprise, involving the sharing of sick footage of amputations carried out in folks’s properties in addition to the commerce of “trophy” physique components, a few of which he saved in his freezer.

Gustavson’s ‘Eunuch maker’ pay-per-view web site was working on an unprecedented scale, with a staggering 22,841 registered customers and raking in nearly £300,000 between 2017 and 2021 – the 12 months he, the ringleader, and a few of his acolytes had been arrested, and the location shut down.

At the Old Bailey on Thursday, Gustavson, of Haringey, north London, who had beforehand admitted prices together with conspiracy to commit grievous bodily hurt, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimal time period of twenty-two years.

Sentencing Gustavson and 6 different males who had admitted their half within the conspiracy, HHJ Mark Lucraft KC stated their “grisly and gruesome” actions amounted to “little more than human butchery” in some circumstances, and concluded that each one had been motivated by “a mix of sexual gratification as well as financial reward”.

Gustavson had not participated in any physique modification earlier than the top of his marriage, Rashvinderjeet Panesar, defending him, beforehand informed the courtroom. It had “kept him stable”, and its breakdown was a “trigger” for his excessive actions.

“When it came to an end it sent him into a spiral,” Mr Panesar stated. “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 stated Gustavson had additionally been recognized with physique identification integrity dysfunction, which accounted for his need to have physique components eliminated.

Extreme physique modification is linked to a subculture the place males develop into “nullos”, brief for genital nullification, by having their penis and testicles eliminated.

Prosecutor Caroline Carberry KC stated Gustavson was linked to not less than 29 procedures: “There is also, we say, clear evidence of cannibalism.”

According to courtroom paperwork, physique components had been put up for public sale on-line with a “buy it now” button. Subscribers paid to entry movies on the Eunuch Maker web site, which operated “in plain sight”, not on the darkish net, with various ranges of membership from “free” to “VIP” which value £100.

Ms Carberry stated the defendants used all kinds of instruments equivalent to clamps used for animal castration.

The courtroom heard Gustavson supplied to promote the severed penis of one in all his victims for tons of of kilos. His arrest got here after he used a pink sizzling iron to model a person’s calf with the letters EM – for ‘Eunuch maker’.

In a sufferer impression assertion, the person who complained to police, described Gustavson as a “lunatic” who had put collectively a “slick, professional website”. There had been 13 victims of the conspiracy total, the youngest of whom was 16 years outdated.

The police investigation led to the arrest of 10 males in London, Scotland and South Wales.

During raids, officers discovered Gustavson’s penis in a drawer in his dwelling 4 years after it had been amputated. Gustavson additionally needed to have his leg amputated in February 2019 after getting a person to freeze it and claimed £18,000 in incapacity funds up till 2021.

Gustavson now needs to return to his native Norway, the place he believes his views usually tend to be accepted, Mr Panesar informed the courtroom.

He had moved to the UK from Norway in 2012, having already been convicted twice of fraud offences.

Around a decade later, Gustavson pleaded responsible to conspiring to commit grievous bodily hurt, 5 counts of grievous bodily hurt with intent, one depend of constructing an indecent {photograph} of a kid, one depend of distributing an indecent {photograph} of a kid and possession of felony property opposite to Section 329(1) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

The different six defendants had admitted conspiracy to commit grievous bodily hurt.

Peter Wates, 67, of Purley, Surrey, a retired former member of the Royal Society of Chemists, was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

Janus Atkin, 38, of Newport, Gwent, who had been finishing a veterinary course, was jailed for 12 years.

Ion Ciucur, 30, of Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, acquired 5 years and eight months imprisonment, and Stefan Scharf, 61, of no mounted handle, was sentenced to 4 and a half years in jail.

David Carruthers 61, and Ashley Williams, 32, of Newport, Gwent, had been jailed for 11 years and 4 years, six months respectively.

In January, three males had been sentenced after admitting inflicting grievous bodily hurt to Gustavson.

Damien Byrnes, 36, from north London, was jailed for 5 years for eradicating Marius Gustavson’s penis with a kitchen knife on video at his dwelling on February 18 2017.

Jacob Crimi-Appleby, 23, from Epsom in Surrey, was jailed for 3 years and eight months for freezing Gustavson’s leg resulting in the necessity for it to be amputated in February 2019.

Nurse Nathan Arnold, 48, from South Kensington, west London, acquired a two-year suspended sentence for the partial elimination of Gustavson’s nipple with a scalpel in the summertime of 2019.