By Laura Armstrong
The People
NORFOLK, England — A girl sexually assaulted by a paramedic who should have helped her after her drink was spiked with a date-rape drug has spoken out about her ordeal.
Vulnerable Natalie Wicks, 19, was attacked by Iain Finney, 33, as she lay in a state of near-paralysis in the back of his ambulance.
The perverted paramedic was not aware that Natalie’s drink had been spiked and believed she was just extremely drunk — and would therefore be unaware of his sick behaviour.
But hospital tests later showed her drink had been spiked by Rohypnol, leaving her partially aware of Finney’s disgusting actions but powerless to stop them.
Now, just weeks after married Finney was jailed for nine months, Natalie has bravely waived her anonymity as a victim of sexual abuse to tell her story.
Speaking exclusively to The People, she said: “I have never felt more helpless or frightened than I did that night in the ambulance.
“I’m quite a shy person and the memory of how Finney took advantage of me makes me feel sick to my stomach.
“The fact that he’d been called to the club to help me makes what he did hundreds of times worse.
“He betrayed my trust, destroyed my confidence and made it impossible for me to trust people — all for a cheap, dirty joke.”
Court appearances
Natalie did not attend Finney’s court appearances because she could not face seeing him again.
She said: “The fact that he was a paramedic just feels like the ultimate betrayal.
“You assume that you’re going to be safe in an ambulance whether there is one paramedic there or 20.
“But Finney totally abused that trust and the memory of what he did fills me with disgust and contempt.
“Given what has happened to me I think there should be rules introduced that say at least two paramedics should be with a single patient in an ambulance.
“If there’s one person out there like Finney, who’s to say there aren’t more?” Natalie, now 20, from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, told how her horrific ordeal began on a night out to celebrate a friend’s 19th birthday in Norwich.
The group of girls had a glass of wine together before heading to the city’s Liquid bar and then Mercy nightclub.
Natalie said: “Three of us were in the club at around midnight when I started to feel sick and dizzy.
“I felt like I was really drunk, even though I had only had four drinks. I told my friends that I was going to the toilet to phone my boyfriend.
“While I was on the phone I collapsed on the floor and the bouncers picked me up and took me to a separate room where they called 999.
“Everything was a bit of a blur but I still knew what was happening around me. I remember my friends shouting at me to wake up. I wanted to tell them that I was awake, but I couldn’t move or speak.”
Police believe Natalie’s drink was spiked by a group of lads who had pestered her as she queued at the bar.
Soon after the emergency call, Finney and another paramedic arrived and decided to take Natalie to hospital while her friends remained in the club.
Finney had earlier told his colleague that he hoped the call was for a “good looking girl”.
As is routine, he was left alone in the back of the ambulance with Natalie to monitor her condition while the second paramedic drove.
Believing that the helpless teenager would not remember, he lifted up the skirt of her dress and pulled down her top to take pictures on his mobile phone.
Then he pushed her bra down and licked one of her breasts before shouting at her to stop moving.
Natalie said: “At first I thought that what was happening to me was normal.
“I remember the paramedic pressing my finger and then I felt him pull my skirt up around my waist.
“But because I was so confused I thought that he was just examining me. Because he was a paramedic, I trusted him. Then he pulled my underwear to one side and I heard this weird noise over and over again — more than 20 times — and realised it was a camera phone.
“That’s when I started to get really frightened. I tried to struggle, but all I could do was wiggle a bit because I was strapped into the stretcher and the drug had left me so weak.
“I heard him say that I looked like I was having a fit and shout at me to pack it in before he pulled my top down and sucked my nipple.
“At that point I really thought that he was going to rape me.”
By the time the ambulance arrived at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital Natalie had recovered enough to blurt out what had happened to her. And nurses began to believe the teenager’s story when she managed to tell them key details about the pervert paramedic.
The police were then called in to question Natalie about the assault. She said: “When the ambulance finally got to hospital, I had started coming round and told the nurses who were treating me what happened.
“They thought at first that I’d been hallucinating and kept asking me what he had been wearing and what he looked like. I was determined to tell them everything I could because I felt so violated.
“However upset and confused I was, I didn’t want him to get away with what he had done to me.”
Denied charges
Finney, who had served nearly 10 years with the East of England Ambulance Trust, initially denied the charges when questioned by police.
He gave them his wife’s mobile phone, claiming he did not own one.
But a DNA examination found his saliva on Natalie’s breasts.
And last month he was sentenced to nine months in prison after pleading guilty to sexual assault and perverting the course of justice.
He was also stripped of his paramedic’s licence and his name was added to the Sex Offenders’ Register.
Finney has never approached Natalie personally or contacted her via police to apologise for his actions.
Natalie said: “To Finney it might have been a joke, but this assault tore my life apart.
“I suffered depression and stopped going out of the house.
“When I did I made sure I was surrounded with people who I thought could protect me.
“I found it impossible to trust any men I didn’t know and my twoyear relationship at the time fell apart because the boyfriend blamed me for what happened.
“He thought that Finney would not have attacked me if I hadn’t been wearing a short dress - he said I had provoked him.
“And for a while I believed that too.”
Barmaid Natalie, who now lives with current boyfriend Daniel Berry, 21, said: “I was a bit disappointed that Finney wasn’t given a longer sentence, because he abused a position of trust.
“But I was also relieved that it was a jail term rather than a lesser punishment.”
And speaking of her hopes for the future, she told how she is finally moving on with her life.
She said: “For ages after the attack I was in a real mess.
“My confidence was ruined and I found it impossible to trust anyone, let alone men.
“I suffered from depression and even went through a phase of thinking the assault was my fault because I had been wearing a little dress.
“But gradually I have learnt to come to terms with what happened.
“Luckily Daniel, my current boyfriend, has been brilliant and managed to persuade me that none of this was my fault.
“He knows what happened and has reassured me that it would never affect our relationship.
“We’re hoping to move in to a new house together in the next few months and he has helped me to have the confidence to follow my dream of fashion modelling.
“And I’m hoping that now Finney has been sentenced I’ll be able to put this behind me and slowly begin to trust people again.”
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