Jamie Gwen Hammond awarded $13,000 after taking $12 of unclaimed poker machine winnings

A TEEN sacked for pocketing $12 of unclaimed poker machine winnings as a tip was awarded compensation for unfair dismissal.

A TEENAGER sacked for pocketing $12 of unclaimed poker machine winnings as a tip has been awarded more than $13,000 compensation for unfair dismissal.

Jamie Gwen Hammond, 18, was awarded the compensation after New Zealand's Employment Relations Authority found a former manager at the Grosvenor Hotel in Timaru on New Zealand's South Island, had trained her to take any unclaimed winnings, the New Zealand Herald reported.

The authority  determined that the former manager's alleged actions, including that she at least once ivided $320 in unclaimed winnings between the bar staff, potentially implicated her in an unlawful act relating to the handling of winnings from gaming machines.

As a result of her evidence, authority member David Appleton found Ms Hammond believed she was doing the right thing when she took the unclaimed $12 as a tip.

It had been Ms Hammond's first permanent full time job and she had undergone training in problem gambling and harm minimisation awareness.

On December 5, 2011, a patron asked Ms Hammond to change $24 in coins won from a pokie machine into notes but left before claiming the winnings.

Legally the money should have been deposited into the Pub Charity Trust's bank account as unclaimed gaming money.

However, Ms Hammond had been taught to leave unclaimed winnings on the bar for several hours and if it was unclaimed it could be split between staff as an end-of-shift bonus.

"She followed what she believed to be the correct practice in such a case," Mr Appleton said.

Ms Hammond split the $24 with another staff member, who decided not to take her $12 share because she "felt uncomfortable".

Ms Hammond was subsequently dismissed.

Mr Appleton said Ms Hammond's boss had not investigated the matter thoroughly enough because if she had she would have discovered the incorrect process that had been taught by her former manager.

"That ... should have convinced a fair and reasonable employer not to have dismissed Ms Hammond, but rather to have instituted training for the staff if the approach Ms Hammond had learned from Ms X was viewed as wrong," Mr Appleton said.

As well as seeking lost wages, Ms Hammond said she suffered humiliation, loss of dignity and injury as a result of being fired, including being dismissed from her new job because of allegations she had been dishonest in her former job.

She said she also fell out with her father, who did not speak to her for five months after the allegations.

Mr Appleton ordered Ms Hammond be paid $6217 in lost wages and $7500 compensation for humiliation she suffered.