A paramedic from the Fens raped a patient then told her he would lose his job if she told anyone, a court heard.

Cambs Times: Andrew Wheeler leaves court. Crown Court, Peterborough Wednesday 09 December 2020. Picture by Terry Harris.Andrew Wheeler leaves court. Crown Court, Peterborough Wednesday 09 December 2020. Picture by Terry Harris. (Image: Terry Harris)

The woman had collapsed while drunk at a friend’s house and 46-year-old Andrew Wheeler, who responded to a 999 call, gave her a lift home in his ambulance car after treating her, Peterborough Crown Court heard.

The woman told jurors the medic “sat down next to me, kissed me” before he raped and sexually assaulted her at her home.

She said that afterwards “he just pulled his trousers up, told me if I told anyone he would lose his job, then he walked out of the door”.

Jennifer Dempster QC, defending Wheeler, told the woman: “I’m suggesting you’re very confused about what happened that day.”

Cambs Times: Andrew Wheeler leaves court. Crown Court, Peterborough Wednesday 09 December 2020. Picture by Terry Harris.Andrew Wheeler leaves court. Crown Court, Peterborough Wednesday 09 December 2020. Picture by Terry Harris. (Image: Terry Harris)

She replied: “No.”

The woman responded to a series of questions about the events of that day by saying she could not remember.

Her friend said she dialled 999 after the woman collapsed in her home in a Cambridgeshire town in 2018.

She said Wheeler, who introduced himself as Andy, treated her friend then offered to take her home.

Her friend said: “I thought it best she goes where she knows. I thought go on, go home, sleep it off, I will come round later.”

But she said the woman later rang her “in absolute tears”.

A second friend said the woman called her and “sounded upset and was crying”.

In a statement read to the court by a prosecution barrister, the friend said: “She said she had been dropped off at home by an ambulance man.”

The woman told the friend what the paramedic had allegedly done to her.

“She kept saying ‘that’s not right is it? You do believe me don’t you?’,” the friend said.

The friend said she called police on behalf of the woman and got them to attend her address.

The court heard a dual-crewed ambulance attended the woman’s friend’s house following her collapse, arriving after Wheeler had done so in a rapid response car and leaving before he did.

Emergency care assistant Stephen Wootley, who was in the ambulance, said the woman did not need to be taken to hospital.

Asked by prosecutor Noel Casey if there was a suggestion the woman could be “put in the garden to rest and given some water”, Mr Wootley replied: “She was intoxicated and needed to be monitored, she needed to rest and that was appropriate action.”

The court heard the woman made comments towards Mr Wootley including “You’re alright”.

He said: “I didn’t appreciate the remarks being made while I was in the kitchen in the hallway, it put my natural guard up.”

Emergency medical technician Danielle Beska-Nearn, who attended with him, said the woman had made “suggestive” comments to Mr Wootley and her behaviour was “erratic”.

Wheeler, of Mill Green, Warboys, denies 12 sexual offences against four women - three of them patients - and one girl.

The allegations span from 2002 to 2018.

The trial continues.