999 paramedic ‘was sexual predator abusing patients’
A ‘PREDATOR’ paramedic raped a patient in her own home and sexually assaulted another in the back of his ambulance, a court heard.
Andrew Wheeler, 46, responded to an emergency call to help a collapsed drunk woman in 2018, Peterborough crown court was told.
Noel Casey, prosecuting, said Wheeler went to an address in a Cambridgeshire town where the woman was with friends. But after sending away another ambulance crew, Wheeler is accused of taking her to her own house and raping and sexually assaulting her. He is said to have told her ‘nobody would believe her as she was an alcoholic’ as he left.
The woman reported the incident to police and he was arrested that day.
Other alleged victims later came forward, including a woman who said Wheeler raped her in 2008 and sexually assaulted her in the back of his ambulance in 2009.
Another woman said he placed her hand on his genitals over his clothing in 2010 while she was a patient. The woman ‘recognised he was a predator using his job,’ Mr Casey said.
Wheeler, of Warboys, Cambridgeshire, is accused of seven counts of rape, two of sexual assault, one of causing sexual activity without consent and two of sexual assault of a child aged under 13. He denies all the charges.
The alleged offences took place between 2002 and 2018 while he worked for the East of England Ambulance Service Trust and as a volunteer for St John Ambulance. The trial continues.