A paramedic sexually assaulted female colleagues while on duty after telling them he was an “animal with animal instincts”, a court heard.
David Lee, 31, groped one woman in a lift at a care home and tried to kiss another on the lips in the back of their ambulance, it is alleged.
He is accused of groping four colleagues and speaking to them in an inappropriate sexual manner while on duty.
Lee also faces charges of indecently exposing himself to two of the women and is alleged to have acted in a culpable and reckless manner towards all of the women when they were driving an ambulance.
It is alleged that he unfastened their seatbelts while the ambulance was in motion and distracted them by putting rubber gloves down their tops.
Lee, from Westhill, Aberdeenshire, denies a total of 15 charges involving five alleged victims at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.
He claims that all sexual activity between him and the women was consensual.
On Friday, the court heard evidence from two complainers, and that Lee had been working with the Scottish Ambulance Service in Aberdeen for some time.
One of the witnesses, who cannot be named , and who was in her early 20s at the time of the alleged offences between 2013 and 2015, said that she at first found Lee’s behaviour to be irritating.
However, she said this developed until he sexually assaulted her in a lift on the way to an emergency and in the back of an ambulance.
She said: “One job we were at was in a care home.
“We were in the lift taking the chair up to the patient and he pushed me into the corner of the lift and was trying to run his hands from my waist to my chest.
“When we had the patient in the chair in the lift he was still trying to prod at my side as we were going down to the ground floor.
“I kept trying to push him off and told him to leave me alone.”
Fiscal depute David Bernard said: “What was his reaction?”
She replied: “Called me boring or suggested that I was being moody.
“I hit his hand away several times. I did not want to make a scene with the patient on the chair.”
Referring to a separate incident, the woman said: “I remember we were at a job in Stockethill, which was just across from the depot.
“The patient did not need transferred to hospital so I went back to the ambulance to finish off the paperwork.
“At that time I was standing leaning against the side of the cupboard. He closed the door to the ambulance behind him and started trying to kiss me on the lips.”
The woman added that Lee had also propositioned her on one occasion.
She said: “He propositioned me asking if I wanted to find somewhere, which I presumed meant to have sex.
“When I said no, he asked me if it was because of morals. I had asked him what his wife would have to say about it and he said ‘my wife knows what I am like’.
“He said he was an animal with animal instincts.”
The woman was asked why she had never reported the incidents to her boss when they first happened.
She replied: “I thought about it but I was embarrassed to speak about it and I was worried that they would not believe me or that they told me ‘that’s just how it is’.”
The woman was asked if she had ever wanted, agreed to or encouraged Lee in any of his behaviour towards her.
She said: “No, never.”
The case continues.
