A SHOE fetishist attacked a string of women to steal their high-heeled shoes, a court heard yesterday.

Omar Abd-el-Gowad, 26, got a sexual thrill when he pounced on victims and ripped the shoes from their feet.

He even moved from the north of England to London to steal shoes because the most glamorous footwear was to be found in the capital, Inner London Crown Court heard.

Gowad has admitted grabbing eight shoes in the the eleven month robbery spree but denies fondling the leg of one of his victims.

Toby Fitzgerald, prosecuting, said Gowad crept up on one victim, who cannot be named, in New Cross on November 9 last year as she returned home with a friend.

Mr Fitzgerald said: "She opened the gate, went towards the house itself and stepped with her left foot onto the front doorstep.

"As she tried to bring her right foot forward she felt the defendant grab her around her waist from behind.

"He then took hold of her right leg and gently caressed her calf muscle and her ankle.

"In the course of doing this and having done this the defendant then grabbed hold of her shoe and he took her right shoe from her.

"Having taken her shoe from her he ran quickly away.

Giving evidence the victim, in her 30s, fought back tears as she recalled her ordeal.

She said she suspected Gowad was following her along the street and told her friend: "It looks like this man is a stalker."

She added: "Then he started to look at numbers on the houses and I thought he was genuinely lost so I just forgot about him.

"But when I got to my front gate and I stepped onto the path with my right leg, as I went to bring my other leg to walk into the house, someone grabbed hold of me round my waist and I was bent slightly forward.

"He was gripping me with both arms because I knew I couldn't have got out of that.

"It was a very firm grip.

"I was suspended and bent over and I am a strong girl.

"I screamed but wasn't afraid as I thought it was one of the guys I lived with or knew having a joke.

"I didn't think it was this guy immediately."

At this point the defendant yelled from the dock: "That is not true."

'He just took my stiletto off'

The victim continued: "It lasted seconds but he seemed to lose his grip from around my middle and I felt a hand come down my leg and hold onto my ankle and he just took my stiletto off.

"The move down my calf wasn't as firm as the grip to my ankle.

"It didn't hurt me and wasn't aggressive in any way, but it was well-practised, swift and quick and seemed as if he had done it before.

"Then he just bolted across the road and didn't stop running.

"It was bizarre, I was just dumbstruck.

"I went into my house and called police. It was never about having my shoe stolen, it was the events leading up to that, the fact he put his hands on me while I was outside my front door, where I live.

"No-one has ever done anything like that to me before and I don't want anyone to do anything like that to me again."

Mr Fitzgerald added: "Members of the jury, this at first blush may appear to be a rather curious incident to you.

"A woman is approached, she is gripped around the waist, her calf and ankle caressed, then a single shoe is taken from her.

"Without more ado the defendant leaves at speed on foot.

"You will hear evidence firstly that the defendant has pleaded guilty to the offence of robbery, that he stole in the robbery her shoe.

"What of the defendant's motivation - his reasons for the attack and the type of attack this was?

"When he was eventually arrested by police he told them that since he was 12 years old he'd found women's shoes sexually attractive.

"He said that although he was sexually attracted to women and he'd had a sexual relationship with a girlfriend as recently as November 2005, his past relationships with women had been somewhat complicated by the fact that he would find the particular girlfriend's shoes more sexually attractive than the girl herself.

"He admitted over the years he had taken shoes for sexual purposes to masturbate and although he had done this less regularly in the past three or four years, he still did do this from time to time.

"He told police that his obsession with shoes had reached a pinnacle once he'd come from Stockton-on-Tees to live in London.

"He found that fashionable to him and sexually attractive shoes were to be found in greater abundance in the capital.

"He said this was the trigger for him to go beyond simply taking shoes when they weren't worn but to take them by force from the women concerned while they were wearing the shoes concerned."

'Very big adrenaline pump'

He told police he got a "very big adrenaline pump" from what he was doing, jurors heard.

But he denied grasping his seventh victim by her waist or groping her leg while swiping her shoe.

Mr Fitzgerald said the defendant went "beyond what was necessary to take the shoe".

He added: "Not, the Crown say, at the outset the major kind or the most intimate kind of sexual assault, but one that amounted to a sexual assault and a frightening one at that."

Gowad, of Stillness Road, Honor Oak Park, admits eight counts of robbery between December 9, 2005 and November 11, last year.

He denies one count of sexual assault on November 9 last year.

The trial continues today.