‘You feel so violated and vulnerable’: Single mum ‘sexually assaulted’ in ambulance by paramedic
WARNING: This article contains language and content some readers may find distressing
As a single mum, Lucy* looked forward to her rare nights out. A few years ago, during after-work drinks at a local pub, she started feeling unwell. When she collapsed and passed out, a bouncer called an ambulance. Lucy’s drink had been spiked.
The ambulance was crewed by two paramedics, a man and a woman. Still unconscious, Lucy was placed on a stretcher, strapped on to the bed, and driven towards the hospital.
After a scary episode, Lucy’s friends must have breathed a sigh of relief. She was safe, and being looked after. But, as the female ambulance driver looked in her rear-view mirror to check on Lucy, she says she saw the unimaginable – her male colleague sexually assaulting his patient.
Lucy still doesn’t remember what happened, but she has the police report and crime scene pictures of the inside of the ambulance.
Pointing to a photo of where she was strapped down, she says almost matter-of-factly: “He put my legs up, so my knees were up, and put his hand inside my groin area – possibly touching my vagina.”
When she regained consciousness, she was told what had happened to her. Years later, she is still struggling to process it.
The paramedic denied the charges and was found not guilty at trial, but later struck off by the paramedics’ regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
They have a lower standard of proof than the criminal courts, and found against him, calling him a “serious threat to patient safety”.
Lucy still wouldn’t feel safe getting into an ambulance today. “It’s awful, you feel so violated and vulnerable,” she says.
“It’s a shock to think someone in that position would do that, when they’re supposed to be there to look after you.”
Her story is horrific, but Lucy is not alone. It forms part of a year-long Sky News investigation into sexual misconduct in the ambulance service, which has revealed a culture where abuse and harassment among staff are rife and patients are sexualised.
A senior ambulance boss admits the service has “let victims down”, while stressing that perpetrators are the “minority”.
Jason Killens, head of the Welsh Ambulance Service and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, says he expects “a steady increase” in the number of cases, with more paramedics being sacked for sexually inappropriate behaviour over the coming years, because of the work his organisation is doing to change the culture.
Data shared with Sky News shows one in five of the sexual misconduct complaints made against paramedics to their regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council, in 2023 were for acts against patients or members of the public.
While fewer than 1% of all HCPC members had concerns raised against them last year, in sexual misconduct cases, paramedics were hugely over-represented.
They make up just 11% of the HCPC register, but account for 64% of all investigations into sexual harassment against colleagues. The regulator’s chair, Christine Elliot, thinks the sexual misconduct cases are “just the tip of the iceberg”.
“This is all about patient safety,” she says. “Patients need to know when they see a practitioner, they can rely on them giving the best care possible with the best behaviour possible.”
‘Totally unnecessary breast examinations’
Cases like Lucy’s are rare but several whistleblowers across multiple trusts have spoken up about a culture in which “banter” or jokes about groping patients are commonplace.
Current and former paramedics claim to have heard patients, particularly young women, being sexualised by the men who had helped to treat or even save them.
One former paramedic revealed the phrase “totally unnecessary breast examinations” (or TUBEs), and said she had heard paramedics talking about “TUBEing” young, drunk women. She also claims to have seen a colleague grope another colleague’s breasts, telling her: “I just TUBEed you.”
A second woman said the same phenomenon was called “jazz hands” in her trust. Both said these were widely understood phrases which referred to colleagues accidentally, or deliberately, touching a woman’s breast during treatment.
A third paramedic told us she’d heard colleagues talk about patients in an explicitly sexual manner, saying things like: “She had nice tits” or “those were silicone”, while bragging about getting a patient’s number and having a “good feel”.
“That is assault. That is sexual assault,” she says.
‘It will be fun. Your career will progress’
“One of my biggest fears was that I wouldn’t be believed because of where I worked. It was the ambulance service and he was the man in charge,” says Ellie*, whose first job was as a call handler in an ambulance control room.
She loved the camaraderie and the idea that she was making a difference. Until one day, the manager called her into his office and invited her to a conference with him. At first, she was flattered and a little confused.
“He explained that he’d taken a liking to me and then he reached out and touched my leg.” Shocked, Ellie froze. “I was in my early 20s and didn’t know what his intention was. I was a bit naive, probably.” As he carried on talking, her boss slid his hand “as far up my thigh as it could go”.
Horrified, she shot back in her chair and asked him what he was doing.
“If you come, we’ll share a room. It will be fun. Your career will progress,” her boss replied.
“No,” she exclaimed, rushing out the room in a panic. Back at her desk, she carried on taking 999 calls while he watched over her.
Then she claims the messages started: “They were photos of his private parts, as well as messages suggesting meeting in the car park for sex and saying he wanted to kiss me. A whole manner of very descriptive sexual actions that he said he wanted to do with me.”
The messages carried on “for months”, she says, despite her pleading with him to stop. She was left dreading going to work for fear of seeing him, and avoided going to the toilet in case she ran into him in the corridor.
Eventually she showed the messages to HR, she says, but claims they suggested moving her to a different office. He wouldn’t be punished.
“It was sexual harassment,” Ellie says, caught between anger and despair. “They didn’t do anything. There was no investigation. No meeting with him that I’m aware of. No statement from me. Nothing. I was the problem.”
She eventually quit the service, but alleges he still works there to this day, an injustice that “makes me feel sick” she says.
An NHS England spokesperson said new national guidance and training has been recently introduced “to stamp out this awful behaviour”.
“Any abuse or violence directed at NHS staff is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated, and the NHS is committed to tackling unwanted, inappropriate or harmful sexual behaviour in the workplace. We have recently introduced new national guidance and training that will help staff recognise, report and act on sexual misconduct at work to stamp out this awful behaviour,” they said.
‘We failed those individuals… I’m sorry’
Ellie’s story is simply “not right”, says ambulance boss Mr Killens.
“We failed those individuals,” he admits, saying “I’m sorry” to both staff and patients who have “been subject to poor behaviour from our people”.
Work is being done, he says, to tackle this kind of behaviour, citing it as his, and his organisation’s, top priority.
That will involve rooting out the perpetrators, but also playing the “long game” to change the culture “so that we can begin to tackle low level misconduct or inappropriate behaviour early, rather than let it fester and get worse,” he says.
According to the HCPC’s chair, cultural change is needed from leadership down. Sexual harassment, Elliot says, needs to be treated as high a priority as “waiting times and crumbling hospitals”.
Read more from this investigation:
Life as a female paramedic
‘Toxic’ culture of harassment revealed
But many of the victims we have spoken to say the HCPC takes too long (an average of three years) to investigate misconduct allegations.
Elliot agrees that isn’t good enough, but says they are running initiatives to speed things up, and wants to see legislative change to give her organisation more power to speed up investigations.
They have also created a sexual safety hub for both victims and witnesses of inappropriate behaviour.
It can be hard to hear allegations like Lucy and Ellie’s, contrasting their stories with a service in which the majority of people are dedicated to saving lives.
But it’s also clear that for far too long, abusers and those who commit sexually inappropriate behaviour have operated with impunity in the ambulance service. Some were perhaps protected by allegiances or cover-ups, many others simply hid behind the veneer of “banter”.
Ambulance and NHS bosses have made it clear to Sky News they are determined to root out not just the perpetrators of serious sexual violence, but also to stamp out the culture that breeds this behaviour.
But in the meantime women like Lucy, Ellie and countless others won’t hear an ambulance siren and feel safe, telling us they would even struggle to dial 999 in the case of a medical emergency.
*names have been changed
Illustrations by Rebecca Hendin
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
A woman who is under police investigation after assisting the suicide of her husband at Dignitas in Switzerland has told Sky News she has no regrets.
Louise Shackleton has spoken publicly for the first time since her husband’s death in December, as parliament prepares to vote again on legislation to introduce assisted dying in England and Wales.
Mrs Shackleton surrendered herself to police after returning from Switzerland having seen her husband Anthony die. He had been suffering with motor neurone disease for six years.
“I have committed a crime, which I have admitted to, of assisting him by simply pushing him on to a plane and being with him, which I don’t regret for one moment. He was my husband and I loved him,” she said.
“We talked at length over two years about this. What he said to me on many occasions is ‘look at my options, look at what my options are. I can either go there and I can die peacefully, with grace, without pain, without suffering or I could be laid in a bed not being able to move, not even being able to look at anything unless you move my head’.
“He didn’t have options. What he wanted was nothing more than a good death.”
The law in the UK prohibits people from assisting in the suicide of others, but prosecutions have been rare.
Louise Shackleton has spoken publicly for the first time since her husband Anthony’s death
In a statement, a North Yorkshire Police spokesman told Sky News: “The investigation is ongoing. There is nothing further to add at this stage.”
The next vote on the assisted dying bill for England and Wales has been delayed by three weeks to give MPs time to consider amendments.
The legislation would permit a person who is terminally ill with less than six months to live to legally end their life after approval by two doctors and an expert panel.
‘He was at total peace with his decision’
Mrs Shackleton says she saw her husband “physically and mentally” relax once on the flight to Switzerland.
She said: “We had the most wonderful four days.
“He was laughing. He was at total peace with his decision.
“It was in those four days that I realised that he wanted the peaceful death more than he wanted to suffer and stay with me, which was hard, but that’s how resolute he was in having this peace.
“I was his wife, we’d been together 25 years, we’d known each other since we were 18. I couldn’t do anything else but help him.”
‘We need to safeguard people’
She said the hardest part of the journey came after her husband’s death.
“There was this panic and this fear that I was leaving him,” she said. “That was a horrific experience.
“If the law had changed in this country, I would have been with family, family would have been with us, family would’ve been with him. But as it was, that couldn’t happen.”
Opponents to the assisted dying bill have raised concerns about the safety of vulnerable people and the risk of coercion and a change in attitudes toward the elderly, seriously ill and disabled.
They say improvements to palliative care should be a priority.
“I think that we need to safeguard people,” said Mrs Shackleton. “I think that sometimes we need to suffer other people’s choices, and when I mean suffer I mean we have to acknowledge that whilst we’re not comfortable with those, that we need to respect other people, other people wishes.”
Read more:
Assisted dying: What is in the legislation?
Debate over assisted dying delayed
Anthony, who died aged 59, was a furniture restorer who had earned worldwide recognition for making rocking horses.
“I think the measure of the man is that nobody has ever said a bad word about him in the whole of his life because he was just so caring and giving,” his widow said.
‘This is about a dying person’s choice’
She said she had chosen to speak publicly because of a promise she had made him.
“I felt that my husband’s journey shouldn’t be in vain. We discussed this on our last day and my husband made me promise to tell his story.
“He told me to fight and the simple thing that I’m fighting for is people to have the choice.
“This is about a dying person’s choice to either follow their journey through with disease or to die peacefully when they want to, on their terms, and have a good death. It’s that simple.”
UK
Feminists ‘feel braver about speaking out’ after gender ruling – but critics say it ‘stokes culture war’
A former Labour MP who quit the party over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership has welcomed the landmark Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman as a “victory for feminists”.
Rosie Duffield, now the independent MP for Canterbury, said the judgment helped resolve the “lack of clarity” that has existed in the politics around the issue “for years”.
She was speaking to Ali Fortescue on the Politics Hub on the same day the UK’s highest court delivered its verdict on one of the most contentious debates in politics.
Politics latest: MPs respond to Supreme Court ruling on gender
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How do you define a woman in law?
The judges were asked to rule on how “sex” is defined in the 2010 Equality Act – whether that means biological sex or “certificated” sex, as legally defined by the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.
Their unanimous decision was that the definition of a “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refers to “a biological woman and biological sex”.
Asked what she made about comments by fellow independent MP John McDonnell – who said the court “failed to hear the voice of a single trans person” and that the decision “lacked humanity and fairness” as a result, she said: “This ruling doesn’t affect trans people in the slightest.
“It’s about women’s rights – women’s rights to single sex spaces, women’s rights, not to be discriminated against.
“It literally doesn’t change a single thing for trans rights and that lack of understanding from a senior politician about the law is a bit worrying, actually.”
However, Maggie Chapman, a Scottish Green MSP, disagreed with Ms Duffield and said she was “concerned” about the impact the ruling would have on trans people “and for the services and facilities they have been using and have had access to for decades now”.
Susan Smith and Marion Calder, directors of For Women Scotland celebrate after the ruling. Pic: Reuters
“One of the grave concerns that we have with this ruling is that it will embolden people to challenge trans people who have every right to access services,” she said.
“We know that over the last few years… their [trans people’s] lives have become increasingly difficult, they have been blocked from accessing services they need.”
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‘Today’s ruling only stokes the culture war further’
Delivering the ruling at the London court on Wednesday, Lord Hodge said: “But we counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not.
Campaigners celebrate outside the Supreme Court. Pic: PA
“The Equality Act 2010 gives transgender people protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender.
“This is the application of the principle of discrimination by association. Those statutory protections are available to transgender people, whether or not they possess a gender recognition certificate.”
Read more:
Supreme Court decision has immediate real-world consequences
Prisons across England and Wales now 98.9% full
Asked whether she believed the judgment could “draw a line” under the culture war, Ms Chapman told Fortescue: “Today’s judgment only stokes that culture war further.”
And she said that while Lord Hodge was correct to say there were protections in law for trans people in the 2020 Equality Act, the judgment “doesn’t prevent things happening”.
“It may offer protections once bad things have happened, once harassment, once discrimination, once bigotry, once assaults have happened,” she said.
She also warned some groups “aren’t going to be satisfied with today’s ruling”.
“We know that there are individuals and there are groups who actually want to roll back even further – they want to get rid of the Gender Recognition Act from 2004,” she said.
“I think today’s ruling just emboldens those views.”
Arsenal have reached the semi-finals of the Champions League after a dramatic victory over holders Real Madrid in Spain.
The north London side, who became the first English team to win twice at the Bernabeu following their triumph there 19 years ago, will face Paris Saint-Germain in the last four after the French side beat Aston Villa on Tuesday.
It is the third time the Gunners have made it through to the semis of the top club football tournament in Europe, and the first since 2009.
Arsenal went into the second leg of their quarter-final clash on Wednesday with a 3-0 lead.
Backed by a raucous home crowd, Madrid tried to get off to a strong start and Kylian Mbappe scored after two minutes. However, the goal was disallowed for a clear offside.
Arsenal had the chance to go ahead in the 13th minute but winger Bukayo Saka missed a penalty.
The Spanish hosts were awarded a penalty of their own about 10 minutes later when Mbappe stumbled under pressure from Declan Rice in the box – but the decision was overturned by VAR.
Saka atoned for his tepid penalty as he chipped the ball past Madrid’s keeper Thibaut Courtois when put through on goal by auxiliary striker Mikel Merino in the 65th minute.
But Arsenal were pegged back just two minutes later as Vinicius Junior caught William Saliba dawdling on the ball and fired Real Madrid level.
Arsenal’s resolute defending kept the home side at bay until Gabriel Martinelli made a late break through the home side’s defence to put his side 2-1 ahead three minutes into injury time, as the Gunners made it 5-1 on aggregate.
(L-R) Arsenal’s Declan Rice and Mikel Merino celebrate after the defeat against Real Madrid. Pic: AP
‘We knew we were going to win’, says Rice
Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice has insisted his team are intent on winning the Champions League after their victory in Madrid.
Speaking to TNT Sport, Rice, who was named player of the match, said: “It’s such a special night, a historic one for the club. We have the objective of playing the best and winning the competition.
“We had so much belief and confidence from that first leg and came here to win the game. We knew we were going to suffer but we knew we were going to win. We had it in our minds, then we did it [in] real life. What a night.
“I knew when I signed, this club was on an upward trajectory. It’s been tough in the Premier League but in this competition we’ve done amazingly well.
“It’s PSG next, who are an amazing team.”
‘We have to be very proud of ourselves’, says Arteta
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta told TNT Sport: “One of the best nights in my football career.
“We played against a team with the biggest history.
“To be able to win the tie in the manner we have done, I think we have to be very proud of ourselves.”
He added: “The history we have in this competition is so short. The third time in our history of what we have just done and we have to build on that. All this experience is going to help us, for sure.”
Real Madrid were seeking their third Champions League title in four seasons.
Mbappe twisted ankle
Their forward Mbappe twisted his right ankle during the game and was jeered by part of the crowd when his substitution was announced after a lacklustre performance.
The French star, who is still looking for his first Champions League title, was replaced by Brahim Diaz in the 75th minute following his injury. He was able to walk off the pitch by himself, but was limping slightly.
The other semi-final will be between Barcelona and Inter Milan.
The first legs are set to be played on 29 and 30 April, with the second legs on 6 and 7 May.
The final will be on 31 May.
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