A CHEEKY Weston man who recited a line from a Hollywood comedy movie after police caught him urinating in the street has narrowly escaped jail.

Dominic Thomas-Bennett, of Pastures Avenue, said he told the policeman in an American accent ‘I can’t stop once I’ve started – it stings’, a line from the 1994 Jim Carrey comedy classic Dumb and Dumber.

Thomas-Bennett appeared at North Somerset Courthouse in St Georges on March 17 for an enforcement of payment summons.

The court heard how the unemployed 27-year-old was given a fixed penalty notice in September last year after a policeman caught him urinating in an alleyway and he responded with back-chat that was deemed ‘threatening’.

Speaking from the dock, Thomas-Bennett, said: “The policeman told me to stop so I said ‘I can’t stop once I’ve started – it stings’. It’s a line from the film Dumb and Dumber - that’s not threatening.”

After failing to pay the �80 fine it then increased to �120 and he was summoned to the courthouse.

Chair magistrate, Marilyn Darg, gave him 30 minutes to come up with some cash or he was told he would be taken straight to prison for a week.

Shocked Thomas-Bennett, who said he hopes to start a new job imminently, said he was not expecting to have to pay the fine that day, let alone having to face a jail sentence, but said he would call his parents for help.

He added: “I wasn’t threatening and I was going to fight it but I didn’t so I’ll just have to pay it.”

After returning with �50 he was spared jail but was ordered to pay back the rest in fortnightly payments of �10.