A semi professional fighter fined for punching a teenager outside a high street fast food restaurant is to fund his court costs through a boxing fight.

Former marine Jimmy Mizon hit Cameron Bowness to the ground outside Dallas Chicken and Ribs, in Sutton High Street, in the small hours of December 3 last year following an earlier fracas at nearby Revolution.

Mizon and one of Mr Bowness’s friends had been thrown out of the nightclub after tempers flared when the former middleweight boxing champion accused the reveller of pinching his girlfriend’s bum.

The 24-year-old, of Pitwood Green, Tadworth, who fights in the Queensbury Boxing League, hit Mr Bowness in the side of his face a few minutes later as he and friends made their way up the High Street to get a taxi.

At Croydon Magistrates Court on Monday he was fined £180 and ordered to pay £350 court costs after being found guilty last month of assault following a trial.

He also has to pay £100 compensation to Mr Bowness and to pay more than £350 outstanding from a previous court fine.

He was given three months to pay the full amount - so he can raise the money to pay for the fine through an upcoming boxing fight.

Chairman of the bench, magistrate Fisher said: "You can't go around getting involved in fights. There may well have been a degree of provocation in this, but in the future you must just walk away."

"Try and not get too angry. Behave yourself next time."

The Crown Prosecution Service did not raise Mr Mizon's boxing skills as an aggravating factor in sentencing.

At his trial prosecutor Michael Phillips said: "As a disciplined boxer, you are very well aware a punch from you could result in serious injuries."

On Monday the court heard Mizon had suffered from post traumatic stress after tours of duty in Afghanistan.

Mr Mizon claimed at his trial he had been acting in self defence.