Ringleader of extreme body modifications cult who made £300,000 from his pay-per-view Eunuch Maker website that featured clips of castrations, penis removal and freezing of limbs, is jailed for minimum of 22 years

The ringleader of an extreme body modification cult who made £300,000 from livestreaming videos of penises, testicles and legs being removed was today jailed for a minimum of 22 years. 

Marius Gustavson, 46, carried out at least 30 of the vile procedures on men who had been pressured and manipulated into having their bodies mangled while others watched on a website called 'The Eunuch Maker'.

The group - which included a nurse, 48-year-old Nathan Arnold, had 22,000 paying subscribers and conducted their sick trade completely in the open, with a public website accessible to anyone who stumbled upon it. 

Gustavson headed the business and was described as an 'arch manipulator' who collected a group of 'acolytes' attracted to the deviant business, according to prosecutors, by 'the sexual element of the offending and financial gain'.

The Norwegian kept a freezer full of men's body parts and cooked himself a testicle salad for lunch. He froze his own leg off and had his penis removed before claiming £18,000 in disability benefits while living in north London. 

Gustavson was handed a life sentence at the Old Bailey today and must serve at least 22 years before he can be released.

Six other members of the body modifications cult were also sentenced.

Retired chemist Peter Wates, 67, who was involved in nine procedures, was jailed for 12 years.

Former surgical assistant David Carruthers, 61, who kept his own testicles in his chest freezer, was jailed for 11 years while his husband Ashley Williams, 32, was jailed for four years and six months for helping him removing a testicle from Janus Atkin, 39.

Atkin, who studied veterinary science and was involved in eight procedures, was jailed for 12 years.

German Stefan Scharf, 61, was jailed for four years and six months for removing one testicle from a man in Gustavson's Camden flat while Romanian Ion Ciucur, 30, was jailed for five years and eight months.

Gustavson, who previously worked in Norway as a postman, received £18,500 in disability benefit after forcing the NHS to amputate his left leg by putting it in dry ice for two hours.

He sold four penises online for £700.

The practice is linked to a subculture where men become 'nullos' - short for genital nullification, by having their penis and testicles removed.

The men claimed they identified as Eunuchs and had to do the operations on each other because they were not available on the NHS.

Gustavson electrocuted the genitals of a 16-year-old and possessed indecent images of children and beastiality porn.

In one message he claimed to have castrated and had sex with an eight-year-old.

Judge Mark Lucraft, KC, the Recorder of London, said: 'Gustavson you are very much the mastermind behind this grisly and gruesome enterprise.

'It was a business which was both busy and lucrative.

'You came to the UK from Norway around 2012 and through your Eunuch Maker website began to advertise so-called body modification procedures.

'Many of the procedures carried out were filmed and over time the films were produced to an increasingly professional standard.

'The website operated between 14 January 2018 and 1 March 2021. By March 2021 there were over 22,800 users from across the globe.

'The footage uploaded was extremely explicit and made available to paying subscribers no doubt so they could watch it for their sexual gratification.

'It was a large scale, dangerous and extremely disturbing enterprise.'

Mr Lucraft accepted that the victims apparently consented to the procedures, but added: 'The law in this country makes clear consent is not a defence to what took place.

'It may be some mitigation- but the performing of such medical processes by the unqualified is eminently dangerous and many may face lifelong issues.

'All the procedures were carried out by the medically unqualified in environments far from sterile.

'They were conducted in amateurish and dangerous ways. In some instances it is little more than human butchery.

'In some cases medical equipment is used, in others normal household implements were used. In some equipment was used which is usually used to castrate livestock.

'Many videos were overtly sexual or had clear sexual overtones, many caused great distress and some resulted in the need for immediate emergency medical treatment.

'I am entirely satisfied the motivations of all involved was a mix of sexual gratification as well as sexual reward.

'In many of the filmed procedures the consequence is severe blood loss and many are in clear and acute pain. One is heard on film saying he does not want to die.

'To many of those looking at this case the activity at the very least will appear to be disgusting and abhorrent.'

The judge said Gustavson was dangerous and there was a significant risk of him causing serious harm through further offences.

He commended the police team for viewing thousands of images and 400 hours of disturbing footage to identify the defendants and said the investigation had been 'four times the size of a typical murder investigation.'

Gustavson appeared in court via video link from HMP Wandsworth as the Old Bailey cannot accommodate defendants in wheelchair's.

Prosecutor Caroline Carberry, KC, said: 'It is an incredible feature of this case that that website operated in plain sight, not on the dark web, but accessible to anyone who stumbled upon it and had the inclination to view the gruesome footage.

'This footage, which is extremely explicit, was uploaded to eunuchmaker.com. Users could pay to subscribe or buy individual videos.

'There is evidence that the victims were promised a sum of money from the video revenue.

'Gustavson recruited like-minded individuals to assist him in his large scale, dangerous and disturbing enterprise. He was a manipulator of victims, who were themselves vulnerable.

'It is impossible to know how many procedures took place in the years when the Eunuch Maker website was active.

'Those which have been prosecuted are those which have been identified from footage found on hard drives in Gustavson's flat.

'All of these offenders were active in the extreme body modification scene and the consensual removal or mutilation of male genitalia. Gustavson was involved in a minimum of 30 procedures.'

After one of his operations, Gustavson cooked severed testicles for lunch which he ate in a salad he had prepared for himself, she said.

He had taken various pictures from 'raw ingredients to an artfully arranged salad platter', Ms Carberry told the court.

She added: 'There is also, we say, clear evidence of cannibalism.'

Gustavson would hold auctions to sell body parts and men would be sent a penis along with the video of it being cut off.

Men were commonly strapped down by their wrists and ankles to have the operations often carried out on top of Gustavson's London Underground map bedding.

The website had basic, premium and VIP membership options for up to £100 a year.

Within the website users could chat to other users with one chat named 'gambling for c**k.'

Police found a 'wide variety' of tools including clamps, forceps, electrodes, catheters scalpels.

The clamps purchased were ones commonly used to castrate livestock.

In one incident in Gustavson's home he and a man were seen playing a 'staged dice game' to determine what body parts are removed.

Gustavson then removed his penis using the same red vegetable knife used to remove his own penis.

Gustavson tells him the wound 'looked awesome'.

The procedure went wrong and Gustavson called 999 and repeatedly told the operator there had been an 'accident'.

In November 2020, a victim came forward and told the police what had happened to him sparking the investigation.

He is the only victim who has assisted the police with their enquiries.

That man told how Gustavson had branded him with an iron imprinting 'EM' on his leg.

Gustavson's claims he hash Body Integrity Dysphoria characterised by 'an intent and persistent desire to become physically disabled in a significant way.'

His barrister Rashvinderjeet Panesar said: 'His desire to be the architect of his own body stemmed from a condition that was unknown at the time that it started.

'From the young age of puberty he had ideation and intentions towards his legs and when he came to the slightly older age of sexual maturity he had a desire to harm his own penis.

'That was nearly 30 years ago before the condition of BID had even been identified.'

Gustavson's marriage with his husband ended in 2016 after 11 years.

Mr Panesar said: 'Before then there had been no body modifications. That was a relationship which kept him stable and when it came to an end sent him into a spiral.

'From puberty to the end of his marriage the psychiatrist has reported the pressures and symptoms of BID have remained dormant within him and after that marriage broke up he was on his own left to his own devices and his modification began.

'His modification led him to feelings of empowerment and greater acceptance of himself and feelings of contentment with his own body and it's from there the Eunuch Maker website begins.'

Mr Panesar said that at a young age Gustavson had struck his own penis with a hammer and poured boiling water on it.

He would bend his leg and put a stocking over it to imagine not having a lower leg.

'He is somebody who performed modifications on himself before anybody else and found empowerment and from his account given he wished to put a smile on other people's faces,' his barrister said.

'He was someone stuck in a body he wanted to make changes to and he understood there were more people out there who wished to do the same.

'We are fully aware of transgender operations, males wanting to become females, females wanting to become males, but this case surrounds people who want to be known as 'nullos' or a neutral gender- for which there is little research.

'There is masses of text evidence of people being happier, and whether or not there was sexual gratification, these procedures have led to a number of people being able to better identify with who they are and who they felt they were.

'It happened in circumstances where legal medical procedures had not caught up with what was sought to be achieved with some of these procedures with regard to neutrality.'

Atkin's barrister Andrew Taylor: 'These procedures are denied to them at present by both the NHS and the law.

'They know that if they want these procedures done in UK they have to resort to means such as those described by the prosecution.

'One of the things that has to happen in any society is for parliament to catch up with social trends and sexual trends and perhaps for parliament to legislate that if for example there are people, not just a handful, not jut those mentioned, there are people in this country who at the moment feel as if they are born into bodies they do not like, do not want and they seek assistance.

'And sometimes society needs to catch up with people and the sexual attitudes at the time.

'This is an epoch-making case. Never before in the history of the courts of England and Wales has a case like this ever come before the court.

'We are left with quite a sizeable cohort of people who are born into bodies that they don't want that they don't enjoy and they want to do something about it.'

Gustavson admitted conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, five counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, possessing criminal property, namely money, and making and distributing two indecent videos of a child between January 2017 and January 2020.

He also admitted, possessing extreme pornographic images, and three counts of possessing pseudo-photographs of a child.

Wates admitted conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm.

Ciucur, who worked in a hotel in Gretna Green, Scotland, when he was arrested, admitted conspiracy to cause GBH with intent in relation to two modifications.

Williams admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Atkin at his home in Newport, south Wales, on 7 November 2017.

Carruthers and Atkin admitted conspiracy to commit bodily harm.

Williams and Carruthers both worked at the passport office in Wales and live in Newport, South Wales along with Atkin.

Scharf admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent by taking part in a single procedure by removing a testicle in an apartment in Camden in July 2019.

Former nurse Nathaniel Arnold, 49, Jacob Crimi-Appleby, 23, and male prostitute Damien Byrnes, 36, all admitted removing body parts from Gustavson and were jailed last year.

Crimi-Appleby, who had a sexual relationship with Gustavson after meeting him aged 17, froze his leg causing it to require amputation, Byrnes removed his penis with a vegetable knife while Arnold partially removed his nipple with a scalpel.

Byrnes was earlier jailed for five years, Crimi-Appleby for three years and eight months while Arnold was given a two year suspended sentence.

Kate Mulholland, CPS Specialist Prosecutor within the 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.'

A confiscation hearing against Gustavson will take place on January 24 next year.