A busker has been jailed for at least two years and eight months for molesting a young girl in the playground of a South Australian school.
Michael John Molloy, 26, was found guilty in the District Court of aggravated indecent assault of the five-year-old in November 2013 at a Mount Gambier primary school playground.
He admitted that hours before the assault he searched the internet for child pornography, and drew pornography and wrote pornographic captions on his guitar while under the influence of methamphetamine.
Judge Wayne Chivell on Friday jailed Molloy for four years with a non-parole period of two years eight months.
He rejected Molloy's claim that he didn't have pedophilic tendencies and that the offence flowed from his drug use.
Molloy "clearly developed a pedophilic obsession" in the hours before the assault as was revealed by his search for images on his mobile phone and his writing and drawings, the judge said.
"The drugs may have disinhibited you but the ideas were there in the first place," he said.
The victim's mother said her daughter had changed from being a bubbly, friendly and confident girl to being scared, untrusting and clingy since her encounter with "the sick, selfish monster".
The girl and other children also would have been very distressed at having to give evidence at the trial, the judge said.
"You falsely denied touching the girl at all and you did so under oath," he said.
A painter by trade, Molloy had been travelling and busking having arrived in Mount Gambier from Warnambool on the day before he went to the playground.
The judge referred to the strong need for deterrence, saying Molloy's behaviour was predatory and he placed himself in a position where he could molest the girl having earlier formed such an intention.
