COMEDIAN Roy Chubby Brown needed his sense of humour when he got a parking ticket at a North-East hospital minutes after handing over a cheque for £5,000 to help cancer patients.

Chubby - real name Royston Vasey – had just handed over a giant cheque to staff from James Cook University Hospital’s Endeavour cancer treatment unit when he returned to his car and found the £50 parking ticket.

Embarrassed hospital officials said Chubby had been given permission to park where he did, but the information was not passed on to staff employed by Carillion, the private company which operates car parks at the hospital.

So while the 69-year-old, Grangetown-born comedian, was handing over his cash to cancer specialists a car parking attendant from Carillion was attaching a ticket to Mr Vasey’s car.

A spokesman for the South Tees Hospital Trust said: “Mr Vasey had permission to park where he did for the duration of the cheque presentation. We have apologised to Mr Vasey for the oversight, which he found highly amusing, and we are very grateful to him for the very generous donation he made.”

Chubby had decided to make a donation to the Endeavour cancer unit because it was staff from the centre who treated the comedian when he was battling throat cancer a decade ago.

Dr Clive Peedell, a cancer specialist at James Cook University Hospital, tweeted: “Big thanks to Roy Chubby Brown for donating £5,000 to our cancer centre. Apologies for parking ticket, Roy!”

A spokeswoman for his agents said: “Roy reckons it must have been the same guy who put a parking ticket on the Queen’s Rolls Royce outside Buckingham Palace.”

His parking fine at James Cook Hospital follows a £30 fine imposed by magistrates in North Yorkshire last month after the millionaire comedian was caught on video reading a copy of The Sun behind the wheel of his luxury Lexus car on the A 19 near Crathorne on May 15.

The resulting video showed him with the newspaper spread in front of the steering wheel.

He pleaded guilty by post to driving without due care and attention at Northallerton Magistrates’ Court. As well as the fine, four points were added to his licence and he was ordered to pay £40 costs and a £20 victim surcharge.