A court in Padua has ruled in favour of a divorced father who paid his child support in the form of pizza.

A 50-year-old pizza baker from a small village outside Padua was acquitted on criminal charges of failing to pay child support after a judge ruled that he had done his best during hard times to provide 400 euros worth of pizzas, calzone and other goods from the take-out pizza place he was managing.

The couple, Nicola Toso and Nicoletta Zuin, divorced in 2002 and for several years all parties followed accords.

But in 2008, Italy was hit by a deep economic crisis and the pizza baker, who had since remarried and had three more children with his new companion, began struggling to make ends meet.