Judge Marilyn Harbison said when sentencing Geoffrey Norman Thomas, 46, that his offending has had a profound impact on the victim and her parents.

Victim impact statements had been tendered from them expressing their feelings over what happened.

Thomas, a part-time spray painter, was described by Judge Harbison as an alcoholic who was drunk when the offences were committed.

A forfeiture order was made relating to Thomas’ computer which had the images.

Judge Harbison imposed an overall sentence of 14 months with a non-parole period of eight months.

She said without a guilty plea Thomas would have received a 30-month jail term and 18 months to serve.

He appeared for sentence after last month pleading guilty to an indecent act with a child under 16 and possessing child pornography.

Judge Harbison had previously been told Thomas became friends with a North East family in 2007 regularly visiting their farm and playing with their children.

One of the children, a girl, 8, said Thomas touched her inappropriately three times between January 1 and May 1, 2009.

The first time Thomas took the girl behind a shed and when she was seated on his lap, he lifted her skirt and had touched her genitals before the girl tried to pull away and ran off.

In the second incident, Thomas touched the girl through her underwear and only stopped when her father had come out of the house to find her.

The father was told by his daughter on January 6 last year about the incidents and reported them to police the following day.

When interviewed by police on January 8, Thomas said he had been tickling the girl.

Her skirt rode up, her underwear was partly down and “for some stupid reason I touched her vagina”.

Police found his laptop contained many child pornography images.

Thomas told police that he had been visiting pornographic websites for a year.

He had saved images but believed that there were few of children under 10.