A hospital caretaker phoned women advertising in Horse And Hounds magazine and asked them about their feet, a court heard today.

Richard William Cove, 25, pleaded guilty to causing a public nuisance by making 63 calls to 19 different women, some of them teenagers, and pretending to be interested in buying their horses.

Michael Joyce, prosecuting, said Cove, of Cedar Avenue, Worthing - who sometimes used the false name Michael Foot - told police that he made thousands of calls.

Mr Joyce told Wellingborough magistrates: "He told police there was nothing sexual in his actions and that he got no sexual gratification. He said he had been 'into' feet since he was quite small."

Mr Joyce went on to describe how Cove would scour the advertising pages of the equestrian and hunting magazine Horse and Hounds looking for women selling horses before calling them.

He would then ring and while pretending to be interested in making a sale would steer the conversation around to the women's feet.

The court heard Cove would ask what size shoes they wore, if their feet gave them trouble and even if they smelt.

Mr Joyce added that sometimes Cove would disguise his voice and use the Michael Foot alias.

He added that while some of Cove's victims had been able to laugh the experience off, others had felt very distressed and frightened by his behaviour.

Selwyn Shapiro, defending Cove, said his client had learning difficulties and had suffered a traumatic family loss at an early age.

He said: "He now lives with his mother and the problems of his early life, I would say, may have been a trigger for his actions."

Sentencing Cove to 80 hours' community service, District Judge Jan Jellema said a psychiatric report on Cove suggested he was not a danger to the public.

The judge said: "The report's conclusion is simply that you are a foot fetishist.

"Of course, it is the way that you chose to pursue that fetish that has seen you brought before a criminal court."