A paramedic who raped a patient at her home and sexually assaulted another patient in the back of his ambulance faces jail time.
Andrew Wheeler, 46, was on duty in an ambulance when called to help a woman who collapsed at her friend’s house in 2018.
He drove the woman, who was drunk at the time, to her own home, where he raped and sexually assaulted her. After three days of deliberation, he was convicted of both offenses by the jury at Peterborough Crown Court. The jury also convicted Wheeler of raping a second woman in 2009 when she was not a patient and of sexually assaulting her as a patient in the back of her ambulance in 2010.
According to the Metro, Prosecutor Noel Casey told them Wheeler ‘abusing the trust that an NHS uniform brings with it’.
Mr Casey said Wheeler was working as a one-crew medic when called in to discuss the incident with the drunk woman.
Wheeler reassured two other paramedics who arrived at the scene that things were under control and that he would stay on site to do the paperwork.
The paramedic then took the woman home, where he assaulted her. When Wheeler left the woman’s house, ‘he said something about losing his job and nobody would believe her as she was an alcoholic’, Mr Casey told the court, the Metro reports.
She reported the incident to the police and he was arrested the same day.
Mr Casey earlier told jurors that the woman was a patient who ‘was struggling to breath in the back of an ambulance’, adding: ‘He was there as a clinician wearing an NHS uniform.’ Wheeler had denied 18 sexual offences against four women and one girl. He was found guilty of six sexual offences – the rape and sexual assault of the two women, and two counts of sexual assault of a child under the age of 13 in respect of a girl who was not a patient.
According to the Metro, Casey had previously told the jury that the woman was a patient who “had trouble breathing off the back of an ambulance,” adding: “I was there as a doctor in an NHS uniform.” Wheeler had denied 18 sex crimes against four women and a girl. He was convicted of six sexual offenses: rape and sexual assault on two women and two sexual assaults by a boy under 13 against a girl who was not a patient.
Wheeler was cleared of causing sexual activity without consent in respect of a third female patient. He was also cleared of six counts of rape against a woman who was not a patient. The jury was discharged, having failed to reach verdicts in respect of five counts of rape against the woman who was not a patient.