Civil Defence member says paramedic sexually assaulted her

A female member of the Civil Defence told a jury yesterday how a paramedic partially stripped her and sexually assaulted her in the back of an ambulance three years ago.

At Ennis Circuit Court, the woman, aged 24, said that she blanked out for a few seconds in the ambulance after the man “tried to choke me. I could feel my trachea closing”.

The woman said the paramedic had driven the ambulance to a forested area. After parking up, she said he told her he wanted to try out a manoeuvre on her.

“After a while, I gave in because he was the person in charge and he was the one in authority and he told me ‘you should do what paramedics tell you’.”

The woman said that after blanking out from being choked, she felt very weak and the man placed her on a trolley in the ambulance.

She said the paramedic “unbuttoned my shirt and moved my bra up off my chest”.

She said the man started to kiss her and put his tongue in her mouth and that he “was full of rage and anger”.

She added that the man tied her hands across each other and placed them over her head.

She said that after coming around, she saw that her clothes had been interfered with and that her trousers and underwear had been pulled down.

In the case, the man denies the charges that he sexually assaulted the woman on a date unknown between March 17, 2010, and April 14, 2010, and again on a date unknown between May 1, 2010, and May 31, 2010, both at a secondary school in Co Clare, and again on February 10, 2013, in an ambulance at a townland in Co Clare.

Philip Rahn, prosecuting, said that the man’s alleged actions constituted a great breach of trust.

The woman said that after a first aid class between March 17 and April 14, 2010, when she was a fifth-year student in secondary school, aged 17, the man told her that she must undergo a medical check to get into the Civil Defence.

She told the jury that at that time, she wanted to be a paramedic.

She said that he brought her into a disabled toilet and put his hand down her underwear and sexually assaulted her.

She said that the man also squeezed her breasts during the same incident.

“I was young and naive and I trusted him. He was a professional and I was shocked and I was confused. I was clueless and innocent,” said the woman.

She said that in May 2010 after another first aid class, the paramedic said that he wished to carry out another medical check and again sexually assaulted her when he placed his hand inside her underwear.

“He told me it was normal for a medical to be done for the Civil Defence,” she said.

The trial continues.