Western Morning News
PLYMOUTH, UK — A Westcountry paramedic who molested an unconscious patient while taking her to hospital has been struck off for his “gross betrayal”.
Robert Steadman, 45, was seen by a colleague to repeatedly grope the 35-year-old woman during the journey from Bideford to North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple.
He was cleared of sexual assault after a trial at Exeter Crown Court last April after telling the court the allegations were “ridiculous”. But the Health Professions Council found the paramedic had opened the woman’s legs to expose her thighs and touched her groin.
Steadman and ambulance driver Shelley Cornish had been called to a pub where the woman had collapsed in the toilet at 1.22am on February 14, 2009. Although it was Ms Cornish’s turn to act as the attendant in the back of the ambulance, Steadman told her that he would travel with her instead of acting as the driver.
Ms Cornish told how she saw in her rear view mirror the paramedic with his hands in the woman’s crotch area during the 17-minute drive to the hospital. She told the panel there was no clinical justification for Steadman’s actions, and she also saw that the woman’s thighs were exposed for at least part of the journey.
As they approached the hospital, Steadman removed his hand from the woman’s crotch, stood up and then brought the patient’s knees back together and pulled the blanket back over her legs.
Steadman had claimed that he had needed to hold the woman’s legs to stop her breaking free from the straps during the journey. The paramedic also claimed he had been steadying the patient because of the movement of the ambulance and that she had kept rolling around.
Panel chairman William Nelson said that Ms Cornish’s evidence had been “truthful and reliable”.
“By contrast to the aforementioned witnesses, the panel found the evidence of Mr Steadman not only to be vague and unconvincing, but also to be unreliable in three important respects,” he said.
The panel rejected Steadman’s claims that the woman moved her legs, that he had to reposition her due to the ambulance’s movement, and that he had not wanted to drive because he was tired. It concluded that variations in his evidence arose “from an attempt by Mr Steadman to make his account more credible in the face of strong evidence rebutting his earlier claims”.
It ruled that the paramedic had inappropriately touched the patient in that he opened her legs and left her thighs exposed, he rested his arm and hand on her thigh and placed his hand in the area of her private parts on at least three separate occasions.
His actions were also found to be sexually motivated.
Steadman, of Tennacott Heights, Bideford, was sacked by South Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust after an investigation of the incident. He was later cleared of sexual assault in a court hearing, which relies on the criminal standard of proof, unlike the tribunal, which can find facts proved on the balance of probabilities.
After being told he had been found guilty of all the charges, the paramedic told the tribunal that his family would suffer hardship if he was to be banned from working.
But Mr Nelson told him: “The panel has concluded that the only sanction that will adequately protect the public and the reputation of the profession is a striking-off order. “Not only is such an order necessary, it is also proportionate.”
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