A 64-year-old man has been waiting eleven years for the law courts to award him compensation from a road accident.

Such is the backlog in the law courts of Utrera in Sevilla, nearly a dozen years have passed since the 800,000-euro compensation was agreed, yet it is stuck in the bureaucratic pipelines.

It would simply take a court clerk to process just one document for Juan Carretero Gil to receive his much needed funds.

And they are much needed because Juan ended up being completely tetraplegic after his car hit a mule that was loose on the road.

Such is his desperation, because he has no money to pay for the specialised assistance required for his day-to-day living, that he has been on hunger strike and even tried to kill himself.

His lawyer has announced that he is going to demand compensation directly from the Ministry of Justice and has already lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman.

(News: Utrera, Sevilla, Andalucia)