Ambo officer said patient was "unusual", court hears

Chris King, former St John ambulance officer, leaving Napier courthouse this week. Photo/Paul Taylor

A St John officer accused of sexual crimes described his young female patient as "unusual" and "difficult" after she fled from the back of his ambulance, says a paramedic.

Former Waipukurau St John ambulance officer Christopher Roger King, 47, is on trial at the Napier District Court this week facing eight sex charges, including the sexual violation, stupefaction and making of intimate visual recordings of a then 15-year-old girl.

King denies all accusations against him made by four female complainants, aged 15 to 57, between January 2010 and June 2013.

St John paramedic Jack Bloodworth, who was working in a separate ambulance in Central Hawke's Bay on July 24 last year, has told the court how King described his "job" involving the teenage girl after returning to the ambulance station.

The teenage complainant, now 16, had called 111 on July 24 asking for help following a domestic incident involving her boyfriend. She was transported to the Waipukrau Medical Centre by King, who was the lone officer in his ambulance.

Mr Bloodworth said after King returned to the Waipukurau ambulance station from the medical centre "he expressed to me that the job had been unusual or difficult".

"The patient was unusual ... it was a young female patient," Mr Bloodworth recalled King had said of the incident.

Crown prosecutor Steve Manning said that King's ambulance travelled for 10 minutes before stopping on the side of the road near Waipawa, according to GPS tracking evidence. It was there, during a 10-minute window between 3.10pm and 3.20pm, that the teenager was first violated and administered Entonox, a pain-relief gas which knocked her out, the Crown alleges.

"He mentioned he stopped to take vital signs," Mr Bloodworth told the court. "It was my understanding Entonox was given from the start of the journey."

"He told me [after he arrived at the medical centre] he came into the back [of the ambulance] and the patient was still drowsy, so he took the Entonox mouthpiece from her."

He said King then explained how the teenager "bolted" from the back of the ambulance and into the medical centre. Later at the station, a distressed looking King mentioned how the teen accused him of "touching her", said Mr Bloodworth.

Yesterday the court was shown shown CCTV footage of the teenage girl fleeing the ambulance and into the arms of a deliver driver, after the alleged sexual assault by King.

The video also showed King "putting a black object into his top left hand pocket" as he entered the medical centre. The Crown alleges this object is the cell phone used to film intimate videos of the teenage girl while she was under the influence of Entonox. King denies having ever made any such recordings.

Throughout the trial, which has now entered its third day, King's lawyer, Bill Calver, has suggested it was a possibility the complainant had been playing with King's cell phone after he left it in the back of the ambulance while driving to the medical centre.

Mr Bloodworth was asked whether is was unusual for ambulance officers to carry personal cell phones on jobs, to which he replied no.

However he said: "It seems unthinkable to me that someone would be so careless with their personal property. Especially in an ambulance, which could be described as an environment where something like that could go missing."

The remaining complainants are expected to give evidence during the trial, which Judge Geoff Rea indicated would run until next week.