Man sentenced to 30 months for rape in Akureyri home

The Northeast District Court has sentenced Björn Ingi Helgason to two and a half years in prison for raping a woman in an apartment in Akureyri, mbl.is reports. He was also ordered to pay her two million Icelandic krónur in non-pecuniary damages.

The judgment was issued on 8 July and published on Tuesday. The district prosecutor indicted Helgason in May 2025 for raping the woman on 13 April 2024.

Helgason and the woman knew each other slightly and had communicated on Snapchat. They agreed to meet that evening and go to a party. The court found that they went into a bathroom, where the woman performed oral sex on him with the consent of both parties. They later took a taxi to her home.

According to the woman, she initially performed oral sex on Helgason at the apartment with her consent. He then became rough, and although she asked him to stop, he continued.

The woman went to the bathroom and called a friend, who contacted police. Officers arrived shortly afterwards and arrested Helgason.

Police body-camera recordings were presented as evidence. The court said the woman was visibly distressed, while Helgason appeared to be in an altered state and was shouting in her room. She appeared afraid of him and worried that the disturbance would cause her problems in the building.

The woman told police that they had begun having sex but that Helgason had gone too far. She said he had hurt, hit and bitten her, pulled her hair very hard and continued despite her repeatedly asking him to stop. She also said that he held her by the neck.

The court described the woman’s testimony as clear from the outset, without contradictions and largely consistent. It said her account was sincere, free of exaggeration and convincing.

During police questioning, Helgason said that pulling the woman’s hair was part of sex, but denied dragging her. He also said that if he had hit her, it would not have been hard and that she had asked for it.

Regarding biting her lip, he said he would never bite hard enough to tear it, but that biting the lip was something people did during sex. He said he bit to create a little “sexual tension”. In court, he said he had been speaking generally during the police questioning about what usually happened for him, rather than describing what had happened between him and the woman.