A MAN’S decision to ignore a police order to leave Chester so he could tuck into a pizza ended up costing him £105.

Benjamin Alan Scott-Thrale, 26, had been thrown out of Off The Wall pub on St John Street in the city at around 10.10pm on Saturday, September 29.

Chester Magistrates Court heard he had threatened to stab someone in the bar and security staff and CCTV operators guided officers to him.

No weapon was found and Scott-Thrale was issued with a dispersal order, meaning he must immediately leave the city and not return for 24 hours.

Officers took him to a taxi rank and left him there.

But around two hours later the defendant was spotted scoffing a Domino’s pizza outside the takeaway venue on Foregate Street. He was immediately arrested.

Defending himself in court, Scott-Thrale pleaded guilty to failing to comply with the police direction but put it down to a misunderstanding.

He said he did not know why he had been thrown out of the pub, and only went to get a pizza as he was hungry after waiting for more than an hour in the taxi queue.

“I was waiting there for about one to one-and-a-half hours and the queue wasn’t going down,” Scott-Thrale told magistrates.

“So I went next door but one to Domino’s and got a pizza. I was eating it on the front and I bumped back into them [the police officers] and they arrested me.”

Scott-Thrale, of Lever House Lane, Leyland, Lancashire, said it was his first time in Chester and the police had given him no indication of how quickly he had to leave the city.

Magistrates said they would be lenient with him on this occasion and handed him a conditional discharge. But they also ordered him to pay court costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £20.