A breakfast chef at a hotel in Veerse Meer has appeared in court for baking a farewell cake for her colleagues – which contained three grammes of marijuana, local broadcaster Omroep Zeeland reported on Monday.

Mariska W, 29, left the cake in the hotel kitchen, telling her colleagues to enjoy it after work. But she had not told them about the drug, and ended up in court, facing a 60 hour community service sentence. 

Mariska, who comes from Vlissingen, told the magistrate she had not intended to make anyone ill and she did not expect her gift to be quite so problematic. 

Despite her instructions, the cake was devoured by her five colleagues during working hours and hit two of them hard.

One of the chefs felt extremely tired and threw up. He was found by a porter asleep in his own vomit and had to sleep it off in the hotel. Another colleague “felt terrible” and had to take the next day off work. Both then launched legal action against Mariska.

The magistrate described the cake as a “joke which got out of hand” and said Mariska had not foreseen the possible impact.

He denied the public prosecution’s call for community service and instead told the woman she would fined €750 if she did anything like it again. She was, however, ordered to pay her female colleague €276 for the lost day’s work.