Richard Cove: Man with foot fetish sentenced for tricking police into saying 'cheesy feet' in 101 calls
A man who repeatedly called police to manipulate female officers into saying phrases like “cheesy feet” and “smelly feet” to indulge his foot fetish has been sentenced for malicious communications.
Richard Cove, 49, of Boundary Road in Worthing, posed as an elderly woman using false names such as “Helen Cheeseman” and made dozens of non-emergency calls to Sussex Police.
He used the 101 service to report trivial matters, then steered conversations towards personal questions, including the size of the officers’ feet, and attempted to coax them into using specific foot-related phrases.
Police presented evidence of over 30 calls made between June 2023 and September 2024. On one day alone, Cove made 60 calls to the non-emergency number, each time withholding his number.
He also directly targeted certain departments and a specific officer within Sussex Police, who helped identify him as the suspect. In total, his actions wasted more than three hours of police time.
Cove was arrested and later pleaded guilty to malicious communications at Worthing Magistrates’ Court on April 8. He was sentenced on July 7 to 10 weeks in prison, suspended for 24 months.
As part of his sentence, he was issued a five-year Criminal Behaviour Order which prohibits him from contacting emergency services unless in a genuine emergency. He must not withhold his phone number, must use his real name, and can only report non-emergency matters in person at a police station, providing correct details.
He was also ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and pay £85 in court costs.
Investigating officer Rose Horan said: “Our phone lines are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to enable the public to contact us with genuine enquiries or crime reports, or in the event of an emergency.
“A number of police staff reported strikingly similar conversations from withheld numbers which we were able to link to Richard Cove. Cove 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.”