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Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Norway’s crown princess, has told a court he does not remember taking pictures and videos found on his phone that police say show him sexually assaulting a woman at a royal residence.
Høiby, Mette-Marit’s son from a relationship before her marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, is on trial accused of 38 crimes, including four rapes and assaults.
He has pleaded not guilty to the most serious offences, including the alleged rapes, and faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted.
The trial comes at a moment of unprecedented pressure on the Norwegian royal family, with Mette-Marit also facing criticism over her links with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Taking the stand at Oslo district court on Wednesday, Høiby gave his account of an afterparty in 2018 during which he is accused of groping a woman while she was unconscious.
Høiby, 29, said he could see that the woman, whose identity is being concealed under court orders, appeared to be sleeping in the videos, but he denied any charges of rape. In Norway, rape can be defined as occurring with or without intercourse.
The party had taken place in the basement of Skaugum, the official residence of the crown prince and princess, while they were upstairs, he said.
On Tuesday, the court was shown four films and 10 pictures apparently taken between 7:12am and 7:17am one morning in December 2018. The prosecution believes the rape without intercourse took place during this time.
When on Wednesday the judge asked Høiby about the videos and photos found on his phone, Høiby said: “I don’t even remember taking them.”
He told the three judges that he and the woman did have consensual sex, but not while she was asleep. She must have been awake, he said, because “I don’t sleep with women who are not awake.”
Within minutes of taking the witness stand, Høiby broke down in tears after saying he found it “incredibly difficult to speak in front of so many people”. The press, he said, had “harassed and tormented” him since he was three years old.
He said he had lived a life that “very few here can relate to”, in which there had been a lot of partying and drinking. “I am known for being my mother’s son. Nothing else. I have had an extreme need for validation,” he told the court. “And that manifested itself in a lot of sex, a lot of drugs, and a lot of alcohol.”
His testimony came after that of the alleged victim from the party. She told the court she remembered briefly having sex with Høiby earlier in the evening before she stopped it, but had had no recollection of the alleged rape until she was contacted by police who showed her the footage.
She told the court that in the footage she had been “completely unconscious” and that learning of it felt like “a betrayal and a shock”.
She said she had never seen herself like that and had never experienced that kind of memory loss. She said she believed she had been drugged.
Breaking down in tears, she said she did not want to be a victim, adding: “Unfortunately, I have been, thanks to Marius Borg Høiby.”
Høiby said he believed that alcohol and drugs were consumed at the party, but that: “Before this came up, this is not an evening that has lingered so much in my mind.”
Asked whether he remembers taking any pictures, he said: “I don’t remember taking them myself, but we had sex completely awake and voluntarily. I don’t remember much of that sex either.”
He said he stored sexual photos and videos in a separate app on his phone because “I don’t want to scroll past a lot of nude photos”. He added: “It’s never been for anyone else but me anyway.”
