SA man jailed for sexually abusing, secretly filming stepdaughter

A South Australian man with a surveillance equipment business has been jailed for more than eight years for sexually abusing his stepdaughter, giving her drugs and secretly filming her in a bathroom.

The District Court heard the 37-year-old man from the Adelaide Hills thought of the girl as a companion after several failed relationships.

He admitted starting a sexual relationship with the 16-year-old girl after she moved into his house in November 2011.

The stepfather set up a hidden camera in a wardrobe which pointed at the bathroom door.

The man pleaded guilty to offences including persistent sexual exploitation of a child, supplying a controlled drug to a child and producing child pornography.

Judge Gordon Barrett said he believed the man had "sexual designs" when he invited the girl to move in with him.

"The situation was made worse by you introducing her to drugs," Judge Barrett said.

"That course of offending has had a devastating impact on her, as it has her mother."

"Your conduct as a whole represents the grossest breach of trust."

In her victim impact statement, the teenager said she had thought the world of her stepfather and was now living with the trauma of what had happened, having dealt with bulimia and with memory loss due to her drug-taking.

The man was jailed for eight years and eight months but can seek parole halfway through his sentence.

Judge Barrett said there was "no question of suspension" because the offending was too serious.