Italy court makes impotent ex-husband pay damages

ROME - An impotent Italian man who kept his problem a secret from his wife until after their wedding must pay her damages for 'eroding' her right to have a family, Italy's Supreme Court has ruled.

The woman, identified by the Italian media as Cristina S., was quick to get her marriage annulled in the 1990s after learning to her horror that her husband could not consummate it.

She then demanded damages, saying she had been robbed of her "right to sexuality" and the promise of a family. Despite losing legal battles in lower courts, she kept appealing, and finally the Supreme Court found in her favour.

"Her fundamental right (was) eroded to fully realise a family, as a woman and a wife, and eventually as a mother," according to excerpts from the court ruling published in Italian newspapers on Thursday.

The amount of damages will be settled by a lower court in Sicily, where the unhappy couple were married.

- REUTERS