‘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
The UK government is facing accusations of being “disingenuous” and “irresponsible” amid growing criticism for not introducing tougher licensing laws for new drivers.
Officials in countries that already use so-called Graduated Driving Licences (GDLs), major UK motoring organisations and bereaved families say reforming the way new motorists get a licence will save lives.
Sky News joined Canada’s largest road policing unit and driving school to understand how GDLs work – with evidence showing that deaths among 16 to 19-year-old drivers there have fallen by 83%.
Despite strong evidence, the UK government says it is not considering introducing them – claiming they “unfairly” penalise young drivers.
“It’s so disingenuous. You’re downplaying what an important function and responsibility it is to be behind the wheel of a car,” says Superintendent Matt Moyer, who heads up Toronto Police Traffic Services.
Supt Matt Moyer
The province of Ontario was the first region of North America to introduce GDLs more than 30 years ago.
It takes at least 20 months to gain a full driving licence, with students earning certain freedoms in stages.
Rules include new drivers not being allowed on the road between midnight and 5am, a ban on driving on high-speed roads and a limit on the number of under 19-year-old passengers.
Maria Bagdonas
Many of these factors have featured in fatal accidents in the UK.
As soon as GDLs were brought in 1994, there was an immediate 31% drop in collisions involving novice drivers.
Maria Bagdonas is chief operating officer of Young Drivers of Canada, the country’s largest driving school.
“It could be passenger restriction, it could be a time of day restriction, it could be a blood alcohol or drug concentration restriction – basically the idea is not to take someone who is newly licensed and say here, ‘go forth’ in this crazy mad driving world and just let them – do or die, because more often it’s the die,” she said.
She questions the UK government’s decision to not introduce GDLs.
“Is it irresponsible to allow the same thing to happen over and over again and expect a different result without any interference…or is it insane?”
We joined new learner drivers in Toronto as they get behind the wheel for the first time.
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Sky’s Dan Whitehead met learner drivers in Canada
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One of them is 23-year-old Bapreet Kaur.
Barpreet Kaur
She gasped when we told her that in the UK, learners can do an intensive course for just one week before taking your test.
“Not everything is about freedom, you have to consider others as well. It’s not just you driving, right? There are other people on the road you have to make feel safe.”
Another learner, 16-year-old Anthony Martella, admits it is frustrating how long it takes.
Antony Martella
“It makes me feel safe because when you’re on the road you want that mutual respect with other people on the road as well…having that aspect of making it longer so people can drive and learn the ways of the road, it makes it better for everyone,” he added.
“It is a bit frustrating, but I completely understand why the rules are in place.”
Graduated Driving Licences are also in place in other countries, such as Australia and New Zealand.
In 2023 around a fifth of people killed or seriously injured in Great Britain in car collisions involved a young driver – and the UK government says young male drivers are four times more likely to be killed or injured compared with other motorists.
The AA, RAC, road safety charities Brake and RoadPeace, MPs and some police have spoken in favour of GDLs.
The campaign group Forget-Me-Not Families Uniting, made up of those who’ve lost loved ones in car crashes, has lobbied the government to bring in the tougher laws – and last week delivered a 100,000-strong petition to Downing Street.
‘People keep dying’
Mia Pullen, whose brother Elliot was killed when a car he was travelling in smashed into a tree at 100mph in 2023 in Oxfordshire, told Sky News he would still be alive if GDLs had been in place.
“It makes me feel really angry, and really quite disappointed and let down by our government because he would still be here and so would hundreds of other people’s sons and daughters,” Ms Pullen said.
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Sister of crash victim: ‘I need no other families to experience what ours has experienced’
She said the number of accidents mean something needs to be done.
Toronto Police
“I think they’re making a very irresponsible decision. How can you not think they’re the most important thing right now in the road safety laws.
“People keep dying. You keep seeing it on the news, ‘young person has been killed’ or another young person has killed someone else because they’re not experienced enough to drive.”
Back in Toronto, Supt. Moyer said there are challenges in enforcing the tough GDL rules.
“You need an in. We can’t just arbitrarily stop people because ‘we think’ or ‘we have suspicion of’. We have to believe an offence has been created.
“We have to be realistic – and manage the expectations of the community. I don’t have enough people to pull over everybody that looks like their young at 3 o’clock in the morning – I don’t have that,” he said.
But he is clear the system works.
“Come out to some of our fatals and find out why there’s 3,000 pounds of steel wrapped around this person and yet there was never any standard applied to them.
“I understand there are some people who feel it might be an infringement on their rights to actually introduce laws.
“These aren’t laws, they are standards – and the more people who will accept that and abide by that, you’ve just made a major contribution to public safety in Britain.”
Prabmeet Sakaria
Ontario’s minister of transport, Prabmeet Sakaria, agrees that GDLs are the safest way to learn.
“We have some of the largest highways in probably North America and so we have to be very careful putting people onto the roads.
“The data speaks for itself here, right. We’ve got 16-18 lane freeways here. Should someone who’s just picked up their licence, really be able to jump on some of the busiest, fastest roads, should they be able to do so not having the experience?”
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Alice was killed and her mum and sister were both seriously injured in a crash. Watch the full interview with her father on the UK Tonight on Sky News at 8pm on Tuesday
A Department for Transport spokesperson told Sky News: “Every death on our roads is a tragedy and our thoughts remain with the families of everyone who has lost a loved one in this way.
“Whilst we are not considering Graduated Driving Licences, we absolutely recognise that young people are disproportionately victims of tragic incidents on our roads, and we are exploring options to tackle the root causes of this without unfairly penalising young drivers.”
A baby girl has become the first child in the UK to be born from a womb transplant.
Grace Davidson, who received the transplant in 2023, said the birth of her daughter Amy Isabel was the “greatest gift we could ever have asked for”.
The 36-year-old, from north London, received the donated womb from her older sister, Amy.
It was the first time the procedure had taken place in the UK, and the birth will give hope to thousands of women born without a womb – like those with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome – or whose womb fails to function.
Grace and Angus Davidson with the hospital team at the birth of baby Amy. Pic: Womb Transplant UK/PA
Amy Isabel was named after her aunt, and a surgeon who helped perfect the technique, and was born by planned caesarean section on 27 February at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in London.
Mrs Davidson, an NHS dietitian, said she felt “shock” when she first held her daughter, adding: “We have been given the greatest gift we could ever have asked for.
“It was just hard to believe she was real. I knew she was ours, but it’s just hard to believe.
“It sort of feels like there’s a completeness now where there maybe wasn’t before.”
Aunt Amy Purdie (right) with the happy family. Pic: Womb Transplant UK/PA
Her husband Angus, 37, said: “The moment we saw her was incredible, and both of us just broke down in emotional tears – it’s hard to describe, it was elation.
“It had been such a long wait. We’d been intending to have a family somehow since we were married, and we’ve kind of been on this journey for such a long time.”
Womb transplantation is on the way to becoming an acceptable, life-giving procedure
The birth of Amy Isabel is not just a first for the UK, but an important step towards womb transplantation becoming an established medical procedure.
It was little more than a decade ago that the world’s first baby was born following a womb transplant in Sweden.
And not without eyebrows being raised by some in the world of medical ethics.
Not all womb transplants, whether from a living relative or from a deceased donor, are successful. And not all result in successful or uncomplicated pregnancies.
But the surgical team behind this UK success have achieved a one-for-one: a healthy baby born from the first womb transplant ever performed here.
Amy Isabel joins an estimated 50 other babies and children worldwide now born via a womb transplant.
And she won’t be the last.
Around 100 women in at least 10 countries have undergone the procedure – three transplants have taken place in the UK since Amy’s mother became the first in 2023.
A study of 33 womb transplants in the US found 74% of the transplants remained healthy after a year and 80% of those resulted in a successful birth.
But a womb transplant is unlikely to ever become “routine”.
While the number of eligible women – those lacking a functioning uterus but having healthy ovaries – might number in the low thousands in a country the size of the UK, not all would meet the strict medical criteria needed to maximise the chance of a successful transplant and subsequent birth.
And not all might choose it.
A successful birth following a womb transplant involves three major operations. The first to receive the transplanted womb, a caesarean section to deliver the baby, then a hysterectomy to remove the womb once the recipient mother decides to have no more children.
Given a womb transplant isn’t “life-saving”, ethics guidelines require the procedure to be temporary. The long-term risks of organ rejection, and the drugs needed to prevent it, are considered too great once the womb has served its miraculous function.
Some medical ethicists still question the procedure as a whole, arguing it is unnecessarily risky for both the mother and baby, especially babies are born seriously pre-term and at low birth weight.
However, this latest success, and the increasing number of healthy babies born via the procedure worldwide may change that.
Womb transplantation is on the way to becoming an acceptable, life-giving procedure for women who previously had no hope of carrying a baby of their own.
Mrs Davidson was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser, a rare condition that affects around one in every 5,000 women. It means they have an underdeveloped or missing womb.
Grace with her sister Amy (right) and daughter. Pic: Womb Transplant UK/PA
However, the ovaries are intact and still function to produce eggs and female hormones, making conceiving via fertility treatment a possibility.
Before receiving the donated womb, Mrs Davidson and her husband underwent fertility treatment to create seven embryos, which were frozen for In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) in central London.
Mrs Davidson had surgery in February 2023 to receive the womb from her 42-year-old sister Amy Purdie, who is a mother to two girls aged 10 and six.
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Several months later, one of the stored embryos was transferred via IVF to Mrs Davidson.
The baby weighed 4.5lbs and was delivered several weeks early to ensure a safe, hospital-based delivery.
Ms Purdie called the birth of her niece “worth every moment”.
Professor Richard Smith and Isabel Quiroga were the lead surgeons for the womb transplant and both were in the operating theatre when Amy was delivered, with her parents choosing her middle name in honour of Ms Quiroga.
Prof Smith, clinical lead at the charity Womb Transplant UK and consultant gynaecological surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, told Sky News that being in the operating theatre when Amy was delivered was “really quite remarkable”.
The medic said: “We’ve waited a very, very long time for this, and there’s been quite a lot of tears shed. Ironically the scariest bit of the day for me was when [Amy’s] mum and dad asked me to hold their baby, which was incredible.”
Ms Quiroga, consultant surgeon at the Oxford Transplant Centre, part of Oxford University Hospitals, told Sky News it was “quite a complex procedure” and “the pressure was immense when we did the transplant”.
But she said it was “totally amazing to see all that effort” and it has “been totally worth it”.
UK
Parents of boy whose outbursts left them fearing for their lives say Adolescence ‘touched a nerve’
A teenager suddenly becomes violent, his anger towards women fuelled by online influencers, while his parents struggle to process what their son is capable of.
Does this sound familiar?
It’s the story of the hit drama Adolescence – but for Jess and Rob, it’s their life.
Their 14-year-old son Harry’s violence has escalated so rapidly he’s had to be taken into care. We’ve changed all their names to protect their identities.
Until the age of 12, Harry’s parents say he was a “wonderful” son. But they saw a change in his personality, which they believe was sparked by an incident when he was hit by a girl. Soon, he developed an online interest in masculine power and control.
Harry’s personality changed after he was assaulted (this image shows an actor in a Sky News reconstruction)
“Harry became obsessed with being strong, and I think he developed a difficulty around certain female people because of the assault,” Jess says.
“He had to be in charge… in every setting,” Rob adds.
Then one night, he punched his mother, Jess. His parents called the police in the hope it would shock him out of doing it again. But, as time went on, the violence escalated.
“We probably must have called the police over 100 times,” Rob says.
One attack was so serious, Jess ended up in hospital. The violence spilled outside the home too as Harry assaulted neighbours and friends.
Then he threatened to stab a teacher.
“Every time we think it can’t get any worse, something else happens and it does get worse,” Rob says. “Unfortunately, him getting hold of a knife is quite likely to happen.”
They say Adolescence, which stars Stephen Graham, Ashley Walters and Owen Cooper, touched a nerve.
Jess and Rob say they called the police 100 times (this image shows actors in a Sky News reconstruction)
“My worst fear is that he’s going to end up killing one of us,” says Jess. “If not us, then somebody else…”
It’s a shocking thought for any parent to have. As well as contacting police, the family have tried many times to get help from social services and the NHS for Harry’s deteriorating mental health.
“We’ve been told that we’re using too many resources and accessing too many services,” Rob says. “We tried for 18 months to get him more intensive therapeutic help. At every turn it was ‘no, no, no’.”
Read more:
Starmer backs campaign to show Adolescence in schools
Inside the online gangs where boys compete to be cruel
They have found help with an organisation called PEGS that supports parents who are victims of their own children’s violence.
PEGS founder Michelle John says many families struggle to have their concerns taken seriously
Last year it was contacted by over 3,500 families, a 70% increase on 2023. Founder Michelle John says many families struggle to have their concerns taken seriously.
“What we’re hearing time and time again is that referrals are not being picked up because thresholds aren’t being met and perhaps the parent or caregiver isn’t a risk to the child,” she says. “Families are falling through gaps.”
In some parts of the country, local organisations are attempting to fill those gaps. Bright Star Boxing Academy in Shropshire has children referred by schools, social workers and even the police.
Joe Lockley, who runs the academy, says the problem is services that deal with youth violence are “inundated”.
“The biggest cause of the violent behaviour is mental health,” he says. “They lack that sense of belonging and control, and it’s quite easy to gain that from the wrong crowd and getting involved in violence.
“Social media is having a huge impact, especially around that young person’s identity.”
Ethan at the Bright Star Boxing Academy
Ethan, 18, agrees. He joined the academy aged 14. By then he had already been arrested several times for getting into fights.
He believes bullying sparked anxiety and depression. “Someone could look at me, I’d be angry,” he says.
“Social media – that’s definitely a massive part. You’ve got so many people that are living this material life. They’ve got loads of money.
“My main thing was seeing people with amazing bodies – I felt I couldn’t reach that point and it made me self-conscious, which would add on to the anger which then turned to hatred towards other people.”
Ethan says boxing has helped him turn his life around
Without the support of the boxing academy, he believes, he wouldn’t have been able to turn his life around.
“I would either be in prison or I would have done something a lot worse to myself,” he says.
“It’s just this massive mess in your head where you’ve got a million thoughts at once – you don’t know what to think or how to even speak sometimes,” he adds.
“All we need is someone that’s got the time for us… and the understanding that it’s a war in our heads.”
A government spokesperson told Sky News: “We have seen too many preventable tragedies caused by the failings of mental health services, and it’s unacceptable that young people have not been getting the care and treatment they need to keep them, their families and the wider public safe.
“We are working to ensure children and their families get that help. We are investing over £50m to fund specialist support in schools, launching a Young Futures hub in every community, and providing access to a specialist mental health professional in every school in England.”
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
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