A former Hawke's Bay ambulance officer, facing eight sex charges, gassed his patients and relied on them "trusting a member of St John," says a Crown prosecutor.
Christopher Roger King, 47, was a St John Ambulance officer based in Waipukurau and is accused of indecent assault, sexual violation, stupefaction and making an intimate visual recording of four complainants, including a 15-year-old girl.
King denies all eight charges, which are alleged to have occurred in the back of a St John ambulance in Central Hawke's Bay between January 2010 and June 2013.
King resigned from his position with St John last year, while his jury trial before Judge Geoff Rea began at Napier District Court today.
Crown Prosecutor Steve Manning asked the jury, of six men and six woman, to determine if it was a "remarkable coincidence"all four complainants were sexually assaulted in an ambulance by a man they identified as King or if it "shows a tendency for this defendant to engage in this form of behavior".