Judge tossed coin to decide where child should spend Christmas

ROME - When the separated parents of a five-year old Italian boy could not agree whose house he should stay at over Christmas, a judge settled the dispute by tossing a coin, an Italian newspaper has reported.

The squabbling couple took their argument to a family disputes court a few days before Christmas and were surprised when the judge, who said there was not enough time to convene the tribunal, tossed a coin for "heads or tails".

"I did it in the interest of the child," Judge Carlo Alberto Agnoli was quoted as saying in Italy's leading daily newspaper Corriere della Sera.

"I certainly couldn't do like Solomon and divide the child. So I trusted to luck," the judge, who presides at a court in the north-eastern town of Trento, said.

He was referring to the biblical King Solomon who threatened to cut a boy in half when two women claimed he was theirs, thus learning who was the true mother when she begged him not to.

The mother, who usually has custody of the boy, won the toss and the boy spent Christmas with her, the paper said.

- REUTERS