An ‘extreme body modification artist’ has had years shaved off his prison sentence after he was jailed for killing one of his female clients and inflicting long-term harm on two others.
Brendan Leigh Russell, 42, was last year sentenced to up to a decade in prison after being found guilty of a string of offences including his role in the death of a female client.
After a judge-alone trial, he was found guilty of manslaughter, intentionally causing grievous bodily harm and female genital mutilation relating to procedures performed on three women between 2015 and 2017.
One of his victims, who cannot be identified and saw him as a ‘God’, was found dead inside her Central Coast home after having a synthetic snowflake implant inserted into her hand at his studio at the Erina Fair shopping centre.
The court was told the woman returned to Russell’s studio multiple times before her death and complained she was experiencing pain and swelling in her right hand because of an infection.
Russell (pictured) will serve a seven-year sentence instead of the 10-year term he was given
Two days after her last visit to Russell, she was found dead due to septicaemia. Following a judge-alone trial in 2021, the body modifier was found guilty of her manslaughter.
Russell was found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm after he performed a botched ‘tummy tuck’ on another woman in 2016.
A third charge of female genital mutilation related to the removal of part of a woman’s labia, with her consent, in January 2015.
The court heard that the woman, who cannot be identified, experienced pain for 12 months and was unable to use tampons and experienced discomfort when wearing underwear.
Last year, Russell was sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in jail with a non-parole period of seven years and six months. However, he launched an appeal against his convictions and his sentence.
Body modification artist Brendan Russell put a snowflake into a 30-year-old woman who later died of blood poisoning. Picture: Supplied.
In a judgment handed down on Friday, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed his conviction for female genital mutilation.
During an appeal hearing earlier this year, his barrister Mark Tedeschi KC successfully argued that the offence of female genital mutilation does not apply to adult women who have consented to the procedure and who do not undergo the operation for ritualistic practices.
Russell also appealed against the length of his prison sentence, arguing that it was manifestly excessive.
However Justices Andrew Bell, Kristina Stern, and Natalie Adams upheld his sentence as well as his other two convictions.
He was re-sentenced to seven years in prison, with a non-parole period of five years and three months. The body modifier will be eligible for release in December 2026.
Russell, who went by the name BSlice in the body modification industry, travelled around showing off his skills with tools such as scalpels and body hooks at modification expos.
He also performed procedures at his Tattoo and Body Modification studio at Erina on the NSW Central Coast and at Tribal Urge tattoo studio in Newcastle.