Lawyer cracks Friends gag at Ross lookalike trial: 'The one with the doppelganger, Your Honour'

David Schwimmer responded after social media users spotted resemblance

Social media users thought Mr Husseini (Blackpool Police/DavidSchwimmer/PA)

A "lookalike" of Friends actor David Schwimmer has denied a string of fraud and theft offences.

Iranian Abdulah Husseini made a brief appearance via a video link from HMP Wormwood Scrubs to deny the charges.

Judge Beverley Lunt, hearing the case at Preston Crown Court, said: "Is this the Ross from Friends case?" at which point the defendant started to giggle and put his hand over his mouth.

Joe Allman, prosecuting, replied: "It is the one with the doppelganger, your honour."

The 36-year-old defendant, from Tehran, who had a shaved head and wore grey tracksuit bottoms and a blue shirt, pleaded not guilty to the theft of a wallet in Blackpool on 20 September last year.

He also denied five fraud offences by allegedly using or attempting to use a stolen Halifax bank card on 17 occasions in shops between 20 September and 5 November last year.

Social media users first pointed out the defendant's similarity to Ross Geller, Schwimmer's character in the popular US sitcom, when Blackpool police posted an image of a man leaving a restaurant and carrying what appeared to be a carton of beer cans.

Mr Schwimmer later responded to the picture by tweeting a video that showed him scurrying through a convenience store carrying a carton of beer before looking up furtively at a CCTV camera.

There was no application for bail by the defendant, from Spencer Road, Slough, west London, who is currently serving a jail sentence.

A trial date for the Blackpool theft and fraud offences was set for 4 July.

Press Association