Confused Tunbridge Wells dry cleaner, Richard Grimley, became paralysed at the door of a local newsagent yesterday after reading a sign warning of "Human Faeces". The sign was actually just advertising a news story in a local paper, but upon seeing it Grimley was plunged into a catatonic trance. Customers of the newsagent were dismayed at having to navigate around Grimley's stationary figure to enter and leave the shop, as he stood transfixed and unresponsive until police arrived.

Eventually two police officers were able to move Grimley's stiff body away from the shop entrance, but it was another hour before paramedics managed to revive the man. When finally coherent, some 2 hours after becoming paralysed, Grimley told police that he had been unable to enter the shop after seeing the sign. "It was as though an invisible wall had been placed in front of me", he said. "I had a dream last night about a carpet of faeces and my mother, may she rest in peace, warning me not to step on it. When I saw the sign, I suddenly remembered the dream and couldn't move or speak."

Grimley, 48, owns the successful Tunbridge Wells Happyfresh dry cleaning business and is chairman of the West Kent Dry Cleaning Society. He claims he has never before suffered from sudden catatonic trances, but did admit to having a faecal phobia since being locked in a porta-loo for 48 hours as a child.