Nursery cleaner sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for fake primary school certficate

Source: KeepTalkingGreece — A court in Larissa, in northern Greece, imposed a 15 year custodial sentence to a 51 year old cleaning lady who had forged a primary school certificate 20 years ago, saying that she had attended the sixth grade while in fact she left had not progressed past the fifth grade. Primary School Diploma in order to get a job at a state nursery.

The sixth grade qualification was considered essential to get a job at a municipal nursery school as a cleaner

The court found that the hiring committee and the board were misled by the fake diploma and hired the woman in 1996.

The woman had received gross salaries of several thousands of euros all these years.

In her defense the woman said that she was in need of a work due to extraordinary familiar conditions. And added that the work she was doing [cleaning] was irrelevant with the educational skills she had to had.

The court convicted the woman to 15 years imprisonment for “counterfeiting with very great benefit of more than €120,000 and a corresponding loss for the Greek state and more than €150,000 “.

While the while the municipal authorities of the small community council who had accepted the qualification have the right to dismiss an employee when they find out 20 years later that they had been misled, it is hard to see how it can be argued that there has been a loss to the state as the woman was paid for the cleaning work that she was actually doing.

The 51-year-old woman appealed the court decision and was released.