A court in Spain ordered the government to pay more than £120,000 compensation for telling a family about their loved one’s death in a car crash after nearly 27 years.
The 24-year-old man was killed in a road mishap in Baza near the southern city of Granada on December 8, 1990. His family reported him missing six days later.
The family remained unaware of his death and not missing until June 12, 2017 due to a bureaucratic error. Spain’s High Court decided his mother should receive just over £58,000 and his four siblings £18,000 each.
They had demanded more than double the amount the government was ordered to pay.
According to government officials, a lack of coordination between police in charge of databases relating to missing people and unidentified bodies was to blame for the extraordinary delay. They admitted it had caused the dead man’s loved ones “additional suffering.”
His family went to the court after they were offered less compensation than Spain’s High Court has now ordered the government to pay.
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