Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner, a wise, goateed Robert DeNiro once said in the movie Heat.

But the man arrested in Kampong Speu’s Samrong district on Tuesday had either not seen the film or thought the heat had died down four years after he allegedly thwacked a villager in January of 2010 at a party.

Police say he worked in Phnom Penh as a construction worker before returning home with the comforting thought that the alleged offence happened many years ago. KOH SANTEPHEAP