KEY POINTS:
A former St John ambulance driver on trial for indecent assault and sexual violation was not a perverted man but a medical professional who was trying to help his patients, his lawyer said yesterday.
The officer, who has name suppression, allegedly indecently assaulted five women in the back of his ambulance at Auckland in 1999 and 2000. He is defending nine charges of indecent assault and one charge of sexual violation.
In her opening address to an Auckland District Court jury, Judith Ablett Kerr, QC, said the officer's examinations of the women were "perfectly proper procedure".
Mrs Ablett Kerr said the officer began his career as a volunteer ambulance driver but went on to join St John fulltime.
"Ironically it was his efforts to improve his knowledge and experience which have indirectly led to his appearance in court now."
His examination of the women had been turned from "perfectly innocent, laudable actions" into a "picture of perversion", she said.
"The defence says some people didn't understand why he did do some examinations ... perhaps because their own [medical] knowledge is limited.
"The defence says what he did with each of these patients was to carry out perfectly proper medical procedures. What he believed to be the appropriate way to provide information for the hospital staff," Mrs Ablett Kerr said.
She accused police of entering their investigations with "closed minds" and urged jurors to remember that her client was innocent until proven guilty.
The complainants who had given evidence at the trial were being asked to remember events that had happened eight or nine years earlier and none gave statements to police at the time, she said.
One of the complainants alleged the officer touched her breasts as he helped her put her robe on, an allegation Mrs Ablett Kerr labelled "absurd".
She said the woman was in a poor condition and she had mistaken the officer's attempt to help her as indecent assault.
Another complainant, who was 16 at the time and wearing her school uniform, alleged he lifted up her skirt and touched her genitals.
But Mrs Ablett Kerr said her client was "intending to eliminate more serious injury" from a "hysterical road crash victim" but that had now been turned into an exercise "in peeking and illicit touching".
The complainants' recollections had been distorted by how much time had passed since the offending was supposed to have occurred, she said.
The officer's accusers had also failed to alert the police at the time, despite one woman saying she was sexually violated by digital penetration.
Mrs Ablett Kerr said the officer would not be giving evidence. The trial is expected to finish this week.
