There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a foot fetish. Some people just enjoy a big toe in their mouth and that’s fine if that’s what you’re into. However, if you’re bombarding the NHS and emergency services with 1,000+ calls so that you can pester the operators about their feet, that’s when it becomes a bit of a problem.

Richard Cove, 49, made repeated nuisance calls to the police’s non-emergency 101 line so he could ‘indulge his sexual foot fetish’, and would give his name as Michael Foot or Helen Cheeseman to get the conversation going.

NHS 111 operators already knew him as ‘The Foot Fetish Caller’, as he would repeatedly enquire about the size of their feet and try to manipulate call handlers into saying the phrases ‘cheesy feet’ or ‘smelly feet’.

Cove pleaded guilty to wasting hours of police time over the calls to the 101 number and was given a 10-week prison sentence, suspended for 24 months.

He previously received a 16-week prison sentence suspended for two years over calls to the NHS 111 line, which obviously wasn’t much of a deterrent, so I’m not sure why they’ve essentially given him the same sentence. Then again, are you really going to jail some creep with a foot fetish for making weird nuisance calls? It’s a tricky one to handle, to be fair.

Investigating officer, Rose Horan, said of the latest offences:

‘A number of police staff reported strikingly similar conversations from withheld numbers which we were able to link to Richard Cove.

‘He pretended to be an elderly woman so that he could manipulate call takers into giving him time and attention.

‘He specifically targeted female officers, some in busy departments dealing with serious sexual offences and online child abuse, wasting scarce public resources to indulge his sexual fetish.’

Jesus. What an absolute weirdo!

Natalie Roepke, prosecuting, added:

‘He was asking the call handlers about their feet and height and telling them about his feet.

‘He admitted a sexual foot fetish which he indulges during the calls.

‘He said he is aroused by feet and especially aroused by the thought of the call handlers feet.’

Cove, who runs an eBay shop from home, said:

‘What I did was very silly. ‘I enjoyed talking about feet, but I made it clear to police I wasn’t getting off on it, there was no masturbation.’

O…K then. Guess we’re going to have to take his word for it on that one. Maybe if he had masturbated before making the calls, he would have got it out of his system?

In addition to the suspended sentence, Cove was issued with a five-year Criminal Behaviour Order preventing him from contacting police unless in a genuine emergency and stipulating that he uses his real name and does not withhold his phone number. He must also report non-emergency matters in person at a police station. He was also ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and pay court costs of £85.

For the foot fetishist who was arrested for stealing and having sex with over 100 pairs of flip flops, click HERE. Let’s just make sure these two perverts never meet.