McDonald's 'wrong' to fire worker over cheese slice

"The dismissal was too severe a measure," the district court in Leeuwarden, in the north of the Netherlands, said in a written judgment.

"It is just a slice of cheese."

A written warning would have been a more appropriate punishment, said the court, which ordered the fast-food chain to pay the worker the salary for the remaining five months of her contract - a total of 4,265.47 euros (£3,660).

The company was also ordered to pay court costs.

The worker was fired at a McDonald's branch in the northern town of Lemmer in March last year for giving a colleague on a break a more expensive cheese burger instead of the hamburger she had paid for.