HARRY Carr ‘‘got his jollies’’ showing pornographic Christmas films to little girls and appearing as a semi-naked Santa with a snowy white beard and tinsel on his genitals.

In court yesterday he had a red face and was not smiling when a judge sent him to jail for up to 12years.

The ‘‘Bad Santa’s’’ crimes against four girls as young as six were not the worst child sex offences Gosford District Court Judge Roy Ellis had seen, but  required a lengthy sentence.

‘‘This is a serious set of offending for various reasons,’’ Judge Ellis said of Carr, 67, a disability pensioner who had not committed a criminal offence for 40years until his ‘‘friendships’’ with neighbourhood children in 2011 in the guise of Santa.

 Over a period of weeks he encouraged an 11-year-old girl and three other girls aged from six to 11 to visit ‘‘Santa’s’’ house. He  played the youngest girl and a 10-year-old a film that started as a Christmas video, and ended as a pornographic film with naked adults.

‘‘Me and [the younger child] closed our eyes. Seen a little bit of rude stuff but closed our eyes and looked the other way,’’ the older girl told police when asked about the film.

In court in November last year after pleading guilty to showing the films, Carr said he did it because ‘‘I wanted to get my jollies’’.

‘‘I wanted to see what they thought about it,’’ he said.

Carr admitted grooming the children and six acts of indecency against the girls, but denied more serious offences of aggravated sexual intercourse and indecently assaulting the 11-year-old.

Judge Ellis found him guilty after accepting the girl’s evidence that a naked Carr pushed her on his bed with her hands behind her back and committed a sexual act.

The girl told her mother on New Year’s Day, 2012.

Judge Ellis sentenced Carr to a minimum seven years’ jail after noting he was willing to undertake a sex offenders program while in jail.

His earliest release date is September, 2020.