Warning: This story contains details of sexual abuse of a child.

A man who repeatedly raped his girlfriend's five-year-old daughter and shared videos of the assaults online was a member of a "pedophile club" for people who want to sexually assault prepubescent children, a Manitoba prosecutor said in court Monday.

The man pleaded guilty to four charges, including touching a child for a sexual purpose, as well as making, distributing and possessing child pornography.

The abuse started when the man moved in with the girl's mother in January 2017 and continued until his arrest on Aug. 25, 2017. The girl was five years old when the abuse started and turned six before the man was arrested.

While the mother was out of the house taking employment training, the 28-year-old man put sleeping pills in the girl's milk and then assaulted her.

"It goes without saying that this child was defenseless," said Crown attorney Sheila Doe. "Taking advantage of this sort of fatherly thing, giving her milk at bedtime, but really he's putting a pill in there, it's despicable behaviour."

Much of the evidence against the man was given to investigators by another man in Australia who belonged to the same group, which was based in the messaging app Kik. Police in Australia arrested the man, and he gave investigators a username that belonged to the Winnipeg man, Doe said.

Out of all the members of the group, the Winnipeg man was sharing the "most severe material," the Australian told investigators.

"He told his Australian co-accused that he sexually abused her every chance he got," Doe said. The court isn't dealing with someone who "stuck his toe into this online world," but rather "someone who was heavily involved in producing this material, sharing this material."

Worked in daycare

The man, who cannot be named due to a publication ban on any information that could identify his victim, worked at a Winnipeg daycare for a number of years before the abuse took place. The director of the daycare declined comment when asked by CBC, but confirmed he had worked there "years ago."

Before the man entered his guilty pleas, defence lawyer Dan Manning asked him about his history of using street drugs, which he admitted to taking during the time periods when he committed his crimes.

"And I understand that your memory of what happened isn't there very good, right? But you told me that there are snippets that you do remember, right?" Manning asked, to which the man answered yes.

A sentencing hearing has been set for June 10 to 12.

The Winnipeg-based Canadian Centre for Child Protection has said it receives 3,500 reports of child sexual abuse imagery a month from Canadians, and 70 per cent of the 44,000 images assessed in a recent report included sexual assaults against children that were recorded in homes.