The son of Princess Mette-Marit will serve his sentence in the palace with an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle

BarcelonaNobody would have thought that the quarrel between the eldest son of Princess Mette-Marit of Norway and his girlfriend would end up leading to the most serious judicial affair the Scandinavian country's monarchy has ever faced. In August 2024, what was initially interpreted as a domestic dispute involving Marius Borg Hoiby soon led to an assault complaint, which was not the last. That incident, which initially interested the gossip press more than anything else, later became an international political issue with the four consecutive arrests of the young man, who was then 26 years old. Each step of the investigation further revealed the seriousness of everything that had been happening within the Norwegian royal family with Hoiby. The young man is not formally a member of the monarchy, but since he was four years old, when his mother married the heir to the throne, Haakon, he has lived as if he were part of the royal family.

Testimonies from former partners of Princess Mette-Marit's son forced the police to investigate his environment more thoroughly, which caused the case to escalate further. However, the turning point was marked by the emptying of Hoiby's mobile phone, which became a source of criminal evidence. Indications of serious offenses such as rape, drug trafficking, reckless driving, and other alleged crimes appeared, which ultimately did not proceed judicially. Nevertheless, the scandal was now irreversible.

If the content of the mobile phone was serious for his judicial standing, it was also serious for his public image. For his and also for that of his powerful family, who had managed – who knows how – to keep all of that secret for years. If he was damaged in the eyes of the courts, he was also damaged in the eyes of the general public, as all that controversy served to open the floodgates for the press against him and to begin publishing stories they had archived for a long time. Stories that increased the general sense of Hoiby's impunity, which put the royal family in a very bad light, as they were rapidly losing the image of exemplary public figures they might have had.

Recidivist two days before trial

After all this fuss came the trial. It was seven weeks of continuous reporting that degraded the Norwegian monarchy institution and Hoiby's future as an adjunct. The most serious moment arrived in June of this year, when the judge sentenced him to four years in prison after being found guilty of two rapes, mistreatment and domestic violence against one of his ex-partners, assaults, threats, drugs and non-compliance with judicial measures. He was acquitted of two other rape charges and part of the sentence requested by the Prosecutor's Office, which had requested seven years in prison. The sentence also included a restraining order against one of the victims and the obligation to compensate all affected persons with a total sum of 60,000 euros.

Marius Borg Hoiby was already in preventive detention when the conviction arrived. Two days before the start of the trial, he was arrested again for an assault, threats with a bladed weapon and the breach of a restraining order issued in favor of an ex-partner. Those new facts, which took place at the beginning of February and were added to those to be judged, motivated the court to order immediate imprisonment because they confirmed the court's suspicions that there was a high risk of recidivism. Those new facts were incorporated into the criminal proceedings and the total number of charges increased from 38 to 40.

Is there no more risk?

That risk of reoffending seems to have suddenly vanished. As we learned this week, his legal team appealed the sentence and, while the High Court does not rule and the sentence is not final – which is estimated to happen in 2027 – he has requested to serve his preventive detention at his home. That is, at the royal palace of Skaugum, which is where the crown prince and princess reside with their two common children, the heiress Íngrid Alexandra and her younger brother, Prince Sverre Magnus. It was predictable that he would ask for it, but it was not so predictable that it would be granted, as has finally happened.

Hoiby, 29 years old, will be able to spend the next four weeks outside the high-security prison of Illa, where he was confined, to re-settle on the public estate that all Norwegians finance with their taxes for the crown princes. He will reside there with an electronic tag on his ankle to ensure that the police can more easily protect all his victims. Unless Hoiby and the overprotection that has sheltered him before and during his trial run faster than the alert from this electronic system, when Hoiby's victims may be left unprotected again.

The Prosecution, against

The prosecution was quick to publicly oppose the decision of the 250th chamber of the Oslo District Court. "It has appealed the decision and requests that the now suspended sentence be applied, which means that it considers that Hoiby should remain in prison until the Court of Appeal has examined the appeal," the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK has published. The public prosecutor's office considers it too likely that Hoiby will commit new crimes and points out that he could still pose a threat to the so-called "woman of Frogner", which is how the press has always referred to one of his victims, using the Oslo neighborhood where she lives to avoid using data that would identify her further.

For their part, the defense lawyers consider that the risk of recidivism has been reduced. Hoiby's defense lawyer, Petar Sekulic, has argued, according to what Aftenposten has published, that this risk is reduced with the use of an electronic monitoring bracelet, which has a high deterrent effect. In any case, Hoiby's main objective is that everything goes very well over the next four weeks, since this imprisonment in a palace – an expression that is an oxymoron like a temple considering it has more than 120 hectares – is only valid for one month. And he does not want to complicate things further for the court, which has already taken a significant risk with a socially controversial measure due to the advantageous treatment it has meant for Hoiby. Far from being extinguished and leaving room for the reconstruction of the monarchy's image, it seems that this case continues to advance on a knife's edge. Could it be that Hoiby, who will never be part of the line of succession, will end up achieving that none of his siblings will ever occupy the throne either?