Body modifier Brendan Russell has jail term slashed on appeal

SELF-PROCLAIMED extreme body modification artist Brendan Leigh Russell will be out of jail more than two years ahead of schedule after he successfully appealed against his conviction for mutilating a woman's genitals at a Newcastle West tattoo studio in 2015.

But Russell remains behind bars a convicted killer after he failed in his bid to have a manslaughter conviction for implanting a silicon snowflake into a woman's hand quashed as part of a landmark appeal hearing into the underground body modification scene in NSW.

The Newcastle Herald revealed in May that Russell, believed to be the first person in the industry prosecuted in Australia, had lodged an all grounds appeal against his convictions and sentence to the Court of Criminal Appeal.

Body modifier Brendan Leigh Russell during his manslaughter trial in Sydney. He was partially successful in an appeal against his convictions on Friday.

After a judge-alone trial in 2021, Russell was convicted of manslaughter after the silicon snowflake he implanted in the woman's hand became infected and she died, as well as intentionally causing grievous bodily harm by performing a quasi-medical and "clearly dangerous" abdominoplasty or "tummy tuck" on a 38-year-old woman in November 2016.

Judge Helen Syme also found him guilty of mutilating a woman's genitals at a tattoo parlour in Newcastle West in 2015, during which Russell used a branding iron to burn off the woman's labia majora.

Judge Syme later jailed Russell for a maximum of 10 years, with a non-parole period of seven-years-and-six-months, saying he had shown no remorse, acceptance or responsibility for causing the woman's death and disfiguring the two others.

Judge Syme said Russell lacked the skills to perform sometimes illegal procedures in unhygienic circumstances and without the required anaesthetic or medical after-care.

Russell was considered a "god" by one of his victims when she had the implantation procedure done in his Central Coast parlour on March 20, 2017.

He later performed a second procedure on the woman, advised her against seeing a medical practitioner and she ultimately died from sepsis.

But Russell's legal team, led by barrister Mark Tedeschi, KC, launched what wound up being a five-day appeal against the convictions, arguing, among other grounds, that the verdicts were unreasonable, that Judge Syme had erred in concluding that consent was not a defence and that the sentence was manifestly excessive.

After two months of deliberation, the CCA delivered its judgment on Friday, quashing the conviction for female genital mutilation and entering a verdict of acquittal, but dismissing the conviction appeal in relation to the two other charges, including manslaughter.

In relation to the genital mutilation offence, Russell got off on somewhat of a legal technicality, the CCA finding they were bound by a High Court statutory interpretation that the charge of female genital mutilation related to ritualistic practices performed on female children.

The CCA re-sentenced Russell to a maximum of seven years, with a non-parole period of five-years-and-three months.

The orders mean Russell will be eligible for parole in December, 2026, two years and three months earlier than his initial sentence.

Russell was last year permanently banned by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission from providing any health services, either in paid employment or voluntarily, to any member of the public.