A former paramedic learned his fate after a month-long trial at Peterborough Crown Court in Manchester, England.
Manchester Evening News reports that Andrew Wheeler, 46, has been sentenced to 21 years in prison for raping a patient in her own home, and sexually assaulted another person while inside an ambulance.
The latest incident occurred in 2018 when Wheeler, who was on duty as a single-duty paramedic, was called to a home in Cambridgeshire to assist a woman who had collapsed. Prosecutors told the court that the victim was extremely intoxicated at a friend’s house when Wheeler arrived.
Two additional paramedics arrived together in a different ambulance, but Wheeler sent them away, telling them he had the situation under control. Wheeler then drove the inebriated victim to her house, where he proceeded to rape her.
The victim was “unable to properly respond or even resist what he did to her, and he did these things while she was alone in her own home, the defendant having taken her there,” prosecutor Noel Casey said
In 2010, Wheeler sexually assaulted an ill patient while she was in the back of his ambulance.
“She [the victim] was suffering from anaphylaxis, she was unable to breathe, she was therefore unable to properly respond or even resist,” Casey said. “It was also a gross breach of trust, the defendant being the treating ambulance technician on the day.”
“He took the opportunity to touch her breasts and while administering adrenalin he said, “that’s not the first time I’ve had to jab you with something.”
Court documents indicate that Wheeler had previously raped the same victim in 2009 when she wasn’t a patient. He also sexually assaulted a minor child, under the age of 13, between December 2013 and May 2014. Investigators said the child was not a patient and wasn’t connected to Wheeler’s work as a paramedic.
Before handing down the sentence, Judge Matthew Lowe said Wheeler showed “arrogance and a belief that he was untouchable and protected, as he saw it, by his paramedic’s uniform.”
“He’s demonstrated that he’s a manipulative sexual predator, willing to exploit for his own gratification the vulnerabilities of three separate (victims).”
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[Feature Photo: Andrew Wheeler/Police Handout]
