SINGAPORE - To feed his gambling habit, a restaurant captain at a Vietnamese eatery pocketed more than $5,000 in sales proceeds and then claimed he had lost a bag containing the money.

Lim Min Sion, 30, later told police he was too engrossed with his mobile phone and left the bag in the toilet.

But he admitted taking $5,455 after his superior discovered a shortage in the cash float and that the safe combination had been changed, and confronted him.

On Tuesday, Lim, now unemployed, was sentenced to four weeks' jail after pleading guilty to criminal breach of trust in July and lying to police. Another pair of these two offences was taken into consideration.

As restaurant captain at The Orange Lantern in HarbourFront Centre in Telok Blangah, Lim had access to the restaurant's safe. He was in charge of safekeeping, tallying and banking the weekly sales proceeds.

The court heard that on July 20, Lim took the previous week's takings from the safe and made sure they tallied with the ledger. He took the cash to the toilet in a bag, carefully pocketed the money, and left the emptied bag there.

Passing sentence, District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim said it was a significant mitigating factor that Lim had since returned part of the money, or $4,600.

Lim could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined for each count of dishonestly misappropriating his then employer's property.

For each count of giving false information to a public servant, he could have been jailed for up to one year and fined up to $5,000.