<a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/ian-beale-e1513593081427.jpg"><img src="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/ian-beale-e1513593081427.jpg" alt="Ian Beale" width="650" height="433" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8005" /></a><br><br>

<strong>A Suffolk man says he has hooked up with hundreds of women by pretending to be EastEnders' hunk, Ian Beale.</strong>

Dashing Steve Walshe, 34, says his cunning act never fails and he's had more girls than anyone else in his home town of Sudbury in Suffolk.



"All I have to do is put on my glasses and stand at the bar looking sorry for myself.

"Within minutes women are coming up to me saying, 'Oooh, you're Ian Beale. I love you in EastEnders'.

"Then I just buy them a drink and give them a bit of Cockney banter and they're begging me to take them home.

"Some of them are a bit surprised when we get back to my damp bedsit in Sudbury town centre - they thought we should be at Albert Square and were hoping to meet Danny Dyer.

"But I just tell them that Sudbury is my bolthole to get away from the pressure of East London."

Steve, who is unmarried and unemployed, said he has "got off" with at least 350 unsuspecting women by putting on his uncanny Ian Beale impression.

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Mr Beale has been a mainstay character in the top-rated BBC soap since it launched in 1985.

He has led a turbulent life in the fictional borough of Walford, and has been married no less than five times, with two other engagements called off.

The fact that his mother apparently died in a car crash years ago and then suddenly came to life adds to his emotional turmoil.

Back in Sudbury, Mr Walshe plays on that vulnerability.

"The girls in Sudbury feel sorry for Ian, so when they see me out and about I know I'm about to get lucky.

"I suppose agreeing to this interview might blow my cover, but nobody reads local newspapers anymore so I should be all right."

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