The evidence of the crime was also evidence of a violation of privacy.
In a courtroom outside Oslo, a verdict arrived by video link to a prison cell, marking the moment a son of Norwegian royalty was found guilty of raping two women while they slept — crimes he had secretly filmed and that his victims did not know had occurred until police discovered the recordings. Marius Borg Høiby, 29, was sentenced to four years in prison, a judgment that ripples outward from one family's private reckoning into a broader national conversation about how rarely sexual violence reaches justice in Norway. The case reminds us that privilege neither prevents harm nor, in the end, reliably shields those who cause it.
- Two women were raped while asleep or incapacitated, unaware of what had happened until police found videos Høiby had secretly filmed on his own phone.
- The verdict arrived as the Norwegian royal family already faced acute public scrutiny — the Crown Princess gravely ill with pulmonary fibrosis and recently linked to Jeffrey Epstein.
- Prosecutors sought seven and a half years; the defence argued for eighteen months; the court settled on four years, rejecting a plea to release him so he could be with his dying mother.
- One victim sat in the courtroom and wept as the judges confirmed what she had testified — her account believed, her suffering formally acknowledged by the state.
- The defence has signaled an immediate appeal, meaning the legal reckoning is far from over, even as the palace has closed its doors to further comment.
- Criminologists note that one in three rape cases reaching Norwegian courts ends in acquittal, and most never reach court at all — placing this conviction in a landscape where justice remains the exception.
Marius Borg Høiby, the 29-year-old son of Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit, received a four-year prison sentence on Monday after three judges at Oslo District Court found him guilty of two counts of rape. He watched the verdict delivered via video link from his cell outside the city, as a 128-page ruling reshaped both his future and the standing of the royal family he belongs to.
The two convictions involved women who were asleep or otherwise incapacitated. In one case, from March 2024, a woman had consented to sex earlier that evening but was asleep when the assault occurred — and had no knowledge of it until police discovered a video Høiby had filmed without her consent. A second conviction reached back to 2018, when he raped a woman on the Crown Prince's estate at Skaugum while she slept, also filming it. She only learned of the assault last year. Of the six women involved in the case, only one was present in court; she wept as the judges confirmed her account.
The court cleared Høiby of two other rape charges but also found him guilty of abusing his ex-girlfriend, Norwegian influencer Nora Haukland, and of causing serious bodily harm to another partner. He was ordered to pay roughly £50,000 in compensation to four of the women. His lawyers had sought eighteen months; prosecutors had asked for seven and a half years. The judges settled on four. An appeal was signaled immediately.
A request to release Høiby on compassionate grounds — his mother suffers from severe pulmonary fibrosis and has been placed on a lung transplant list — was rejected. The court cited the risk that he might contact a woman he had previously violated a restraining order to see. The palace issued a brief statement and indicated it would say nothing further about Mette-Marit's health until after any transplant procedure.
The verdict arrives at a fragile moment for the royal family, already unsettled by the revelation that the Crown Princess had maintained a years-long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Observers note that public sympathy has shifted somewhat toward Mette-Marit given the severity of her illness, but the institutional damage is real. Criminologists have used the case to draw attention to a persistent problem: in Norway, one in three rape cases that reach trial end in acquittal, and the vast majority never reach trial at all. The two women acquitted on Monday join a far larger, largely invisible group for whom the justice system offered no resolution.
Marius Borg Høiby sat in a prison cell outside Oslo on Monday afternoon, watching a verdict arrive by video link. The 29-year-old son of Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit had been found guilty of two counts of rape and sentenced to four years in prison. Three judges in courtroom 250 at Oslo District Court had spent the morning laying out a 128-page ruling that would reshape his life and cast a shadow across the Norwegian royal family itself.
The case centered on six women, though only one sat in the courtroom to hear the verdict. She wept as the judges confirmed what she had told them in February: she had been asleep when Høiby raped her in March 2024, after they had engaged in consensual sex earlier that evening. The evidence was stark. Høiby had filmed the assault without her knowledge. Police found the video on his phone after his arrest in August 2024 in the upmarket Frogner district of Oslo, where he had been arrested at another woman's flat following an incident that left her with serious bodily harm. The woman in the March case said she would never have allowed what happened. The court agreed she had been unable to resist.
All four rape charges involved women who were either asleep or incapacitated. None of them knew what had occurred until police discovered the recordings. The judges cleared Høiby of two of the rape counts—one involving a woman he met at a hotel in November 2024, another from a holiday in the Lofoten islands in 2023—but the two convictions stood. One victim dated back to 2018, when Høiby raped a woman on the Crown Prince's estate at Skaugum while she slept. She only learned last year that he had filmed it.
Beyond the rape convictions, the court found Høiby guilty of abusing his ex-girlfriend, Norwegian influencer Nora Haukland, and of causing serious bodily harm to another partner. He was ordered to pay 640,000 kroner—roughly £50,000—in compensation to four of the women. His defence team had argued for 18 months in prison. Prosecutors had sought seven years and seven months. The judges split the difference, settling on four years. Høiby's lawyers immediately signaled they would appeal.
The court rejected a plea for his release, despite his mother's deteriorating health. Mette-Marit suffers from pulmonary fibrosis and has been placed on a lung transplant list. His defence had repeatedly asked that he be freed to spend time with her. The court ruled there was a risk he might contact a woman he had been convicted of assaulting and whom he had previously violated a restraining order to see. The judges were not moved by the family circumstances.
The verdict landed in a moment of acute vulnerability for the palace. Mette-Marit's illness is severe and public. Weeks before the trial began, it emerged that the Crown Princess had maintained a three-year friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender. The royal family issued a terse statement: the matter had been considered by the courts, and they had no comment. They made clear there would be no further statements about Mette-Marit's health until after any transplant.
Yet the case has exposed something deeper in Norwegian society. Anja Emilie Kruse, a criminologist at the University of Oslo who researches sexual violence and attended portions of the trial, points out that one in three rape cases reaching Norwegian courts ends in acquittal. Most rape allegations never make it that far—police place them on file and move on. The two women whose cases ended in acquittal on Monday are far from alone in that experience, Kruse told the BBC. The cases that do reach trial are merely the visible tip of a much larger problem.
Caroline Vagle, royal correspondent for Se og Hør magazine, observed that public perception of the royal family has undoubtedly shifted. But she believes the mood has changed again since the verdict. Mette-Marit's health now dominates the conversation, overshadowing everything else. Peggy Simcic Brønn, a specialist in reputation and public relations at BI Norwegian Business School, described the situation as an institutional crisis for any family. The path forward, she suggested, involves letting the conviction stand, allowing the sentence to be served, and attempting to rebuild what has been damaged—both for the family and for the institution itself.
Citas Notables
These two women who today experienced their cases ending in acquittal are far from alone in having that experience, and the rape cases that do make it to court are just a kind of tip of the iceberg.— Anja Emilie Kruse, criminologist at University of Oslo
The way they handle it is let the person be convicted, let him serve his sentence, but try to make amends as a family for what that person has done to their reputation and the impact on the royal house itself.— Peggy Simcic Brønn, reputation specialist at BI Norwegian Business School
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does it matter that he wasn't in the courtroom for the verdict?
It's a small detail, but it signals something. He watched by video from prison. There's a distance there—physical, but also symbolic. The verdict came to him rather than him facing it directly.
The videos seem central to everything. How did they become evidence?
Police found them on his phone after his arrest. He had filmed the assaults without the women's knowledge or consent. In some cases, the women didn't even know what had happened until investigators showed them. That's the cruelty of it—the evidence of the crime was also evidence of a violation of privacy.
Two acquittals out of four rape charges. Why does that matter beyond this case?
Because it reflects a pattern. One in three rape cases that reach Norwegian courts end in acquittal. Most allegations never get that far. These two women join a much larger group of people whose cases didn't result in conviction. It's a systemic frustration.
His mother is dying. Did that influence the sentence?
The defence asked for his release because of her health. The court said no—there was a risk he'd contact a victim he'd assaulted before. The family circumstances didn't outweigh the court's assessment of danger. It's a hard collision between compassion and accountability.
What does this do to the royal family?
It's an institutional crisis, according to experts quoted in the reporting. The palace can't comment much without drawing more attention. And Mette-Marit's illness is now the dominant story—which in some ways protects the institution, but also means the family is dealing with multiple catastrophes at once.
Will this change anything about how rape cases are handled in Norway?
That's the open question. The case has surfaced frustration about conviction rates and the burden of proof. But systemic change is slow. What's clear is that this case, precisely because it involves the royal family, has made visible a problem that usually stays invisible.