A cleaner who stole a bookie's tip jar claims he did it out of desperation to feed his family.
Gary Beer, from Dover , emptied the bin at Jennings Bet in Sandgate Road, Folkestone , when the shop was closed.
The 27-year-old told a court he ran out of money after mistakenly believing he was being paid weekly when it was actually monthly.
He was scolded when staff arrived the next day to find the £34 missing.
Beer, who left Universal Credit to start his new job, was seen on CCTV in the room where he was being held, which he was not allowed to enter.
He was captured rummaging through cupboards before finding the wand tip jar and dumping it into a black bag.
The matter was reported to police and Beer's boss at Capital Cleaning Supplies, who gave the shop staff £100 for losing the money.
Beer was immediately fired from the cleaning company and asked to return the keys to the store.
However, he told his boss he couldn't return them until after the weekend, so his boss would have to pay an extra £130 to have the store's locks replaced.
Beer, of Leyburne Road, was later arrested by an employee and charged with theft.
He admitted the offense when he appeared before magistrates in Margate on Thursday.
Dylan Bradshaw, a prosecutor, told the court the money was stolen on March 4 last year.
He added that Beer was cooperating with the police, telling them "he wasn't paid and took the tip jar as payment."
The bank heard that Beer had a criminal record for burglary in 2014 and had also received a disability conduct directive in 2019.
However, he violated the community order by not fulfilling his unpaid work obligation.
Judges were told he had a partner and three children to support, and misunderstandings about when he would be paid prompted him to take the money on impulse as his family was in dire need of food.
The bank was also told there was only £34 in the pot and that Beer had made a big mistake that day, but he did so because he realized he had been on the wrong salary for a whole month.
The court heard that she had now managed to get another job at a cleaning company and as a result had not completed all of her unpaid work requirements on her previous appointment and had 26 hours of unpaid work.
The magistrates decided to extend their community order by six months and added another 10 hours of unpaid work.
He was also given another 12-month community injunction for the crime of robbery, which will take him to 25 probationary rehabilitation sessions and an additional 40 hours of unpaid work.
Beer has also been ordered to pay his former boss £230 in compensation from the cleaning company.
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