Two men sentenced for castration, amputation of ‘body modification’ ring leader

Two men were jailed in a London court on Monday for helping the owner of an extreme body modification video website to have his penis and a leg removed.

Marius Gustavson willingly had his penis cut off at his London home in 2017 and uploaded the footage to his pay-per-view “Eunuch Maker” website. The 46-year-old also had his left leg amputated after deliberately submerging his leg in dry ice in 2019.

Damien Byrnes, 36, pleaded guilty in April to causing grievous bodily harm by cutting off Gustavson’s penis. Jacob Crimi-Appleby, 23, pleaded guilty in May to causing grievous bodily harm by helping Gustavson freeze his leg so an amputation was necessary.

Judge Mark Lucraft on Monday sentenced Byrnes to five years in jail and Crimi-Appleby to three years and eight months, describing their actions as “abhorrent”.

Gustavson himself pleaded guilty in October to offences including conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm and causing grievous bodily harm and he will be sentenced in March.

Prosecutor Caroline Carberry told the Old Bailey Gustavson was the “mastermind of a lucrative extreme body modification enterprise” and removed several people’s penis or testicles.

He was a “willing victim” and actively encouraged those who helped in his own amputations, she said.

But, as a person cannot legally consent to the infliction of an injury causing bodily harm, the procedures amount to a criminal offence even with Gustavson’s consent.

The practice is linked to a subculture of men seeking to become so-called “nullos”, short for genital nullification, by having their penis or testicles removed.

Carberry said Gustavson boasted to the man who cut off his penis that he had castrated more than a dozen men, and told the man who helped him remove his leg that he “kept the testicles he removed in jars”.

People pay a subscription to access the website. It was not clear how big the audience was or how much money the site made.

But Judge Lucraft said it “generated considerable interest and significant financial gains”.

Another man, Nathaniel Arnold, 48, had pleaded guilty to cutting off Gustavson’s nipple and stealing lidocaine from a hospital at which he worked as a nurse. He was given a two-year suspended sentence.