SINGAPORE — As the restaurant manager of Maison Kayser Serangoon, he had access to its daily cash proceeds and was responsible for depositing the money into the restaurant's bank account.

However, instead of banking the money, Benedict Seet Siew Keat pocketed it for his own use and to pay off gambling debts.

Even after he was caught out for that offence, Seet took cash a year later from another eatery — The Connoisseur Concerto (TCC), where he was an assistant outlet manager of its Circular Road outlet at Boat Quay.

On Thursday (Oct 3), Seet, 39, pleaded guilty to two charges of criminal breach of trust and was sentenced to 21 months’ jail.

MISSING MONEY

The court heard that in the first offence, Seet pocketed a total of S$65,668.60 from Maison Kayser Serangoon restaurant in June and July 2017.

On July 10, 2017, Mr Wong Kwai Hoong, the operations manager at the restaurant, discovered that the money had gone missing and confronted Seet.

Seet could not be contacted the next day and Mr Wong filed a police report.

A year later, between June 7 and June 25, 2018, Seet pocketed S$2,025.70 from TCC.

He was responsible for banking the cash proceeds of the cafe every day. The cafe’s accounts department uncovered the discrepancies in its bank account, prompting its assistant operations manager, Mr Yeo Sui Shen, to conduct further investigations.

He then realised that Seet had misappropriated the funds and confronted him on June 25. At the time, Seet agreed to meet Mr Yeo to resolve the issue.

However, on June 26, he did not turn up for the meeting and could no longer be reached.

Mr Yeo filed a police report the next day.

On Sept 3, 2018, Seet was arrested by the police. He then admitted that he had taken the money from both the restaurant and the cafe to repay gambling debts and for his personal expenses.

No restitution has been made to either establishment.

Court documents show that Seet has a string of previous cheating and property-related offences.