By Emily Caulkett-
A drunken woman has appeared in court, charged with assault, after she groped a paramedic in an ambulance while he gave her treatment, a court heard.
Deepa Meghani, of Wembley, allegedly touched the genitals of the male paramedic through his trousers and asked him to “run away” with her.
The 33-year-old is said to have been heavily intoxicated, and was found unconscious in the street during the pandemic in 2020, jurors heard.
She was found in Wembley and Meghani allegedly swore at the paramedics after a “pain test” of being pinched on the ear and shoulder.
The paramedic told jurors at Harrow Crown Court that Meghani was “black-out drunk” and began grabbing his thigh on the way to hospital.
While alone together in the back of the ambulance, he claims she insisted he was “beautiful and sexy” and asked him to “run away with her”.
The court heard how she groped the paramedic when they arrived at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow.
According to the paramedic, it was his ninth month working as a qualified paramedic and he was still on probation after first starting in October 2019.
He said: “I observed the patient seemed to be intoxicated, there was a strong smell of alcohol on her which led me to believe she was intoxicated.
“It was early hours of the morning, there were other people around, so we tried to get the patient into the ambulance, so we could administer care with privacy.”
Describing the journey to the hospital, he said: “She swore a few times at my crew mate, she called him a d**khead on a few occasions.
“But we managed to set up that there was no immediately life-threatening conditions she was suffering from.
“The report that the patient had collapsed in the street and the fact she was intoxicated we could not leave her and we had to go to hospital.”
The alleged victim said he was trying to “bat off” the patient as she tried to reach for his face and at one point she gave what he described as a “bear hug”.
He continued: “At one point she reached over and placed her hand on my leg, on my thigh, the inside of my thigh – I kept telling her not to do that, I said ‘don’t touch my thigh’ and ‘get off me stop touching me,’ I said that more than once.”
When paramedics tried lifting her onto a hospital bed, the victim said he felt the patient’s hands on his back and “grabbing my buttock and squeezing it”. The paramedic took exception to the unpermitted conduct.
He reported it to the police as soon as he returned to the ambulance station.
Inappropriate
David Armour, the paramedic who was driving the ambulance at the time of the incident, told jurors he thought the alleged victim acted inappropriately and unprofessionally by “allowing” Meghani to continue to touch him.
He said had never seen a paramedic not take action to move away from a drunk and disorderly patient – particularly given drunk sexual behaviour was a near-daily occurrence on the job.
Consequently, he described the alleged victim’s response as “blown out of proportion.”
Meghani denies one count of sexual assault.