A paramedic who had sex with a suicidal patient has been struck off following a Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC) hearing. Ian Denman, from Wakefield, engaged in 'sexual relations' with the woman after being called to her home in 2012.
The HCPC panel found that Denman's behaviour was 'fundamentally at odds with that expected of a practitioner'. The hearing was told that police attended the woman's home on 8 July 2012 after she called 999 in a 'distressed and suicidal state'. When rapid responder Denman arrived at the request of police, the officers left the property.
The woman, referred to as Patient A, later alleged she had been sexually assaulted by Denman, though she subsequently said the sexual relations were consensual. Denman, who had been a paramedic for 26 years, claimed he had been sexually assaulted by the patient. However, the HCPC said the patient's account was 'more believable and consistent', while Denman's was 'at times contradictory and inconsistent'.
The panel stated: 'On the evidence of both Patient A and the registrant this occurred and so this allegation is found proved.' In ordering Denman's removal from the register, the HCPC said his 'subsequent denial and placing of blame on the patient so unsustainable that only a striking off order is the proportionate sanction'.
Denman did not attend the hearing but sent a 22-page email to the HCPC maintaining he had been sexually assaulted. A Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust spokesman confirmed Denman had been suspended once the allegation was made and later dismissed following an internal investigation, stating his conduct had 'fallen far below the standards of professionalism expected'.
