‘Cruel’ child abuser hints appeal: court

One of Australia’s most prolific child abusers had hinted he harbours plans to appeal as his decades-long jail sentence was extended.

Boris Kunsevitsky, 58, appeared in the Victorian County Court on Friday afternoon after pleading guilty to a new charge of sexually penetrating a teenage boy about 30 years ago.

Kunsevitsky was jailed in January 2020 for 35 years over the sexual abuse of dozens of children across 15 years and four countries.

At the time, Justice John Champion said Kunsevitsky’s crimes “represents the worst level and type” of child abuse he’d seen.

“It was breathtaking in its scale … your appetite for the sexual activities that underpinned your offending appears to have been insatiable,” he said.

“You are a child abuser of appalling and cruel proportions.”

Born in the former USSR, Kunsevitsky arrived in Melbourne at the age of 12 and went on to have a career in specialist nursing.

Prior to his arrest at Sydney Airport in September 2017, he had been based in Singapore for a decade where he was “well regarded” in the medical sales field and travelled extensively in Asia.

Of his identified victims, thirty-six were Filipino, 5 were Singaporean, with one from both Indonesia and Australia.

He mostly targeted disadvantaged boys in the Philippines, recording the sick abuse and was even seen smiling at the camera.

Police uncovered tens of thousands of images and videos of child abuse material on his devices, some hidden inside a folder labelled “Jailbait”.

On Friday, Judge Kevin Doyle was told the new offending he was to sentence Kunsevitsky on predated his other offences by about a decade.

Crown prosecutor Angela Moran told the court the abuse occurred when he was aged in his late 20s and working as a nurse at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.

She said Kunsevitsky “ingratiated” himself with the family of one of his patients, beginning to shower the patient’s younger brother with gifts and attention.

In the mid-90s the boy, then 14 or 15, ran away from his parents home following a fight and stayed with Kunsevitsky at his Bentleigh home for about three weeks.

On one occasion the child abuser told the boy to “sit back and relax” and “pretend it was a girl” as he sucked the boy’s penis and digitally penetrated his anus.

Staring down Kunsevitsky in court, the victim said the abuse had left a devastating wake of trauma in his life that felt like a life sentence.

“This was an authority figure, a carer and a friendly, helpful man I was supposed to be able to trust. My parents trusted him,” he said.

“He only saw value in what he could do to me or make me do for him.”

Kunsevitsky could be seen scratching his head emotionlessly and drinking from a water bottle as the man shed tears.

“I was taken advantage of by an extremely sick individual … but the outcome of this case will set me free,” he said.

“He will rot in jail and cannot cause harm to anyone else.”

Handing down a two year jail sentence with eight months to be served on top of his existing sentence, Judge Doyle said it was clear the offending had a severe and profound impact.

He said the sentence could not reflect the harm caused, with the principle of totality a key factor in his determination.

During the hearing, Kunsevitsky’s barrister John Desmond said that while he did not represent the man on his other charges, Kunsevitsky “has in mind appealing the sentence”.

He will be eligible for parole in 2047 aged about 81.