Amy Ellingworth, former personal assistant to Scott Driscoll, had kept a desk diary outlining what it was like to work for him. Not long after it went missing, she lost her job. Credit:Jorge Branco But the last straw for Ellingworth was when she confided in him she suffered endometriosis, and might on occasion need to call in sick or work from home if her period cramps got too painful. Rather than deal with the potential occasional absence on a one-off basis, Driscoll demanded she "document it", and mark up his office calendar with her menstrual dates because, "I need to know when you might not be in the office." Driscoll, who was elected to Queensland Parliament in the Campbell Newman landslide in 2012, was sentenced on Friday to six years' jail over 15 fraud-related offences, after he had pleaded guilty to soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret commissions from supermarkets in 2011 and 2012. Ellingworth's story, and those of others close to Driscoll, paint a picture of an outwardly charming and plausible man-about-town who was at base a ruthless, narcissistic control freak lacking a moral compass. Ex-girlfriends and others close to Driscoll say he never forgave his father, a respected schoolteacher, for leaving him and his mother in Redcliffe. These people say he was driven by a desire to prove himself.

Former Queensland MP Scott Driscoll approaches Brisbane District Court for his sentencing on fraud charges. Credit:Jorge Branco Defence submissions during sentencing argued that Driscoll had a previously undiagnosed bipolar condition that could provoke "surges of energy and heightened grandiose types of behaviour". Relentless drive for profile Driscoll muscled his way to the top of the QRTSA only to refashion it in his own image. The stairs were lined with photographs of him gladhanding political leaders including Kevin Rudd and John Howard. Behind his sumptuous wooden desk was a large Australian flag. 'Seemingly charming and plausible man-about-town': Scott Driscoll had a dark side. Credit:Glenn Hunt

"It was set up like he was state premier or something," says one investigator. The ostensible purpose of the body was to protect small retailers from the growing power of the big supermarkets. Scott Driscoll, pictured with Tony Abbott and Bruce Billson in an image from the Queensland Retail Traders and Shopkeepers Association website, was eager to advance his own political career. Credit:QRTSA Frankly I don't give a shit what lies any of those gutter rats want to spin about RCA funding my campaign or me flying to Mars to have sex with a one legged mutant midget. Scott Driscoll But Ellingworth recalls that Driscoll's primary concern seemed to be how to sustain and increase his media profile. His success in this regard eventually meant, as one LNP insider later confided, Driscoll became a "walk-up" for preselection for a state seat.

"My first job every morning was to issue five or six press releases," Ellingworth says. Driscoll's voice and image became commonplace on radio and TV during any public discussion of trading hours, the travails of small retailers and the sins of the "evil duopoly" of Woolworths and Coles. What Ellingworth observed at the QRTSA's offices in Kelvin Grove would set the scene for the next few years as Driscoll pursued his political ambitions. Elllingworth claims Driscoll later stole her personal desk diary, in which she had detailed what it was like to work for him. "I had diarised him talking about going across the road to the adult shop and how his office was full of alcohol, it was like a bar at a gentleman's club," Ellingworth says.

"He would ask some of the girls who worked there to stay back after work for drinks and would start talking about how he'd like to turn his office into a strip club and use the pole from the Australian flag he had in there for pole dancing." Not long after her diary went missing, Ellingworth was sacked. Jobs for the family As well as using the QRTSA to burnish his image, Driscoll was also exploiting it to line his pockets. He got himself a company Chrysler 300, which he called his "gangster car". He bullied the QRTSA's volunteer board members into giving him regular pay rises. He would eventually be convicted of fraud for transferring ownership of a Honda car that belonged to the organisation to himself and using it in part exchange to buy another vehicle.

Driscoll was also paying his wife, Emma, who was then running a flower stall in a market at Redcliffe, $300 a week out of petty cash to provide fresh flowers in the QRTSA offices. He gave his mother a sinecure job researching opportunities for Aboriginal employment in the retail sector. It was just one corner of a growing web of nepotism, deceit and fraud. In July 2011 the death of the QRTSA's part-time treasurer Don Jowett, a respected accountant who had had a long career as a professional sports referee, meant the last chance of meaningful oversight of Driscoll was gone. Behind the scenes, Scott and Emma wrote themselves a management contract between the QRTSA and their private company, Norsefire (apparently named for the fascist party in the dystopian film V). The contract called for the QRTSA to pay annual fees to Norsefire of $360,000. It was a serious boost to the Driscolls' finances ­– and a recipe to bankrupt the retailers' body. The detail of the fees was buried in an addendum to the contract, which somehow got past the board. Board members later claimed they'd never seen the full document.

Political ambitions Having won preselection to stand in the state seat of Redcliffe in 2011, there was a new thirst for cash. In September Driscoll organised to sell the QRTSA's building on Kelvin Grove Road for $550,000, despite there being no record of him gaining approval to do so. It's still unclear what happened to the proceeds. Also in 2011, the Driscolls boosted their coffers with a contract for Norsefire to provide "media, communications and fundraising services" to a small Redcliffe charity organisation, the Regional Community Association Moreton Bay (RCAMB), initially for $1000 a week, later rising to $2850 a week. Just like the QRTSA, the RCAMB - set up to feed the homeless and care for vulnerable victims of domestic violence - could not afford the arrangement.

RCAMB staffers also complained that the body was so strapped for cash that it couldn't buy food for the homeless. But Driscoll installed mates on the board and helped them sack whistleblowers who complained about his involvement. An internal RCAMB email revealed Driscoll's response when a senior staffer complained that he was using the organisation to fund his political activities. "Frankly I don't give a shit what lies any of those gutter rats want to spin about RCA funding my campaign or me flying to Mars to have sex with a one legged mutant midget," he wrote. But although the CCC assigned a separate team of investigators to look at allegations relating to the RCAMB, they couldn't make them stick because key evidence was destroyed.

Concerned staff had called police to alert them that a known associate of Driscoll's had been spotted removing boxes of documents from the building after hours, but no action was taken. Driscoll made two donations to the LNP totalling $54,000 on the same day Norsefire received a $60,000 payment from the QRTSA. The LNP has said it plans to keep the money. Once elected in March 2012 – apparently a surprise to many in the LNP – Driscoll claimed to have stepped down from his roles at the QRTSA and the RCAMB. But in fact he continued to control both organisations in secret. He installed phone lines in his electorate office for the QRTSA, claiming in Parliament that they were for a "community hub".

In October 2012 Driscoll called a senior executive at Coles, introduced himself as "the member for Redcliffe" and offered to change his position on trading hours in exchange for a $200,000 to $300,000 contribution to the struggling QRTSA. He then made a similar approach to Woolworths. The executives kept notes and had them ready when CCC investigators came to call. Beginning of the downfall As revelations mounted in the press, then-premier Campbell Newman initially defended his MP, calling the welter of allegations "an Easter egg hunt". But after an internal investigation the Parliament's Ethics Committee made the almost unheard-of call for Driscoll's expulsion, prompting his resignation.

Amy Ellingworth says that prior to media interviews Driscoll would ask her not to let on that he was from Redcliffe, where his mother had raised him after his father left while he was still a toddler. "It was like he was ashamed of it or something," Ellingworth says. Loading She was bemused when during campaigning for the 2012 election in Redcliffe, where she lived at the time, Driscoll adopted the slogan "Redcliffe born and bred". "He was smart and calculating," says Ellingworth. "He played it like a game of chess. That's why he hired 19-year-olds like me."