QUIRKY WORLD ... Spanish civil servant skips work for six years

SPAIN: A Spanish court has ruled that a civil servant who failed to show up to work for up to six years in the southern city of Cadiz must pay back nearly €27,000 in wages.

The ruling said the employee of a city-owned water utility did not appear at the office and “did absolutely no work” from 2007 to 2010 before his retirement in 2011. The judgment did not specify how the worker’s absence went undetected for so long.

The decision marked the end of a legal process lasting for years after city officials sought the penalty and the worker appealed against it. The civil servant cannot be named due to privacy laws.