A convicted pedophile turned his suburban Melbourne garage into a drop-in for schoolgirls by offering them the drug ice before performing sex acts on them.
The man was living in the garage behind his former home after being kicked out by his wife, when he began befriending the schoolmates of his 15-year-old son.
Depressed from the break-up and the loss of his job, he had been smoking ice daily, the Victorian County Court heard.
Soon he was offering the drug to the schoolgirls who came around to visit his son.
The 49-year-old would smoke ice with the girls and supply the drug to them free of charge.
He sexually assaulted three girls in his Bundoora garage while plying them with ice and marijuana.
The girls, aged between 14 and 16, were typically troubled youths.
On one occasion he drove one of the girls to nearby Mount Cooper, where he began fondling her in the back seat of his car.
When she told him to stop, he smoked ice with her, then continued to perform sex acts on her while she was drug-affected.
Two of the girls suffered ongoing drug addiction following his arrest in 2013, according to a prosecution summary read to court.
The father of three invited four other schoolgirls into his garage, one of whom he also supplied with free drugs.
As a convicted child sex offender, from a 2004 indecent assault charge, the man was not permitted to have contact with children without reporting it to the authorities.
He did not report any of his contact with the schoolgirls, the court heard.
The man pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16, three counts of indecent act with a child, four counts of supplying drugs to a child and failing to comply with reporting obligations.
A jury in January also found him guilty of nine counts of sexual penetration of a child and three counts of an indecent act with a child, in offences dating back to 2000.
Defence barrister Kristie Churchill said her client was mired in drug use and suffering from poor self-esteem and depression when he offended.
"Contact with the young people flattered him - he was treated as somebody with something of value," she said.
Prosecutors called for a lengthy jail term, saying he had shown no remorse for his crimes.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, will be sentenced later in February.
