For six years Greg O'Connor systematically defrauded Australia's meat processing industry body, siphoning millions from the organisation through false transactions and receipts. But the 58-year-old accountant from southern Sydney didn't splash out on fast cars and a lavish lifestyle. Instead, he pumped nearly all of the $4 million he stole into his son's rugby league club, the Menai Roosters, and other local teams, giving the young players a footy thrill ride they could only have dreamt of. "Training, coaches, insurance, jerseys, electricity bills ... this was above and beyond what they would ever have experienced playing park football," O'Connor's barrister, Michael Ainsworth, told the Downing Centre District Court this week, before his client was sentenced to at least four years' jail. The money he actually spent on himself was a very small proportion ... He hasn't got gold taps in his bathroom or driving a Bentley. It's a strange circumstance when you steal $4 million from an employer and then go out and lease a Holden Astra. The court heard that among the largesse heaped on the young footballers was an all expenses paid end-of-season tour to England, Ireland, Wales and France, at a cost to O'Connor's employer, the Australian Meat Processor Corporation, of $1.1 million. "I'm not sure how the other people at Menai didn't twig that while they're holding chook raffles for an end-of-season trip to Woy Woy, the mighty Menai Roosters are travelling to England, Ireland, France all expenses paid," Mr Ainsworth said. O'Connor's motivation, the court heard, was a desire to earn the love and respect of his local community. "He wanted to enhance his standing ... to earn the love of his community," Mr Ainsworth said. He's done it for the accolades from the people in the community where he lives, where his son played football. It drove him to pursue a simple but highly effective scam that was undetected for nearly six years. O'Connor used his position as the financial controller of the corporation to create scores of fraudulent transactions in its online payment service, provided by the ANZ Bank. In each case, he created false invoices to cover his tracks, pretending that the money had been spent on legitimate services when in fact it was going into a series of bank accounts he was personally responsible for. O'Connor was eventually caught in 2008 when the AMPC realised some of its money had been spent without authorisation on a corporate box at an NRL game. "The offender falsely represented to the CEO of the company that these money transfers were for legitimate services, when in fact no services or goods were provided for," District Court Judge Penelope Hock said when sentencing O'Connor. Judge Hock took little account of O'Connor's football patronage in reaching her decision, finding only that it was "important for the offender to gain respect and recognition in this way." "He easily dispensed largesse with money that wasn't his," she said. O'Connor will be eligible for parole in September 2017.