Christopher Roger King, 49, who claimed he was the unluckiest ambulance officer in the country, was sentenced this morning by Judge Geoff Rea at the Napier District Court on a total of 13 sex charges.
Last month, a jury found him guilty of eight charges relating to the indecent and sexual assault of four woman, aged between 15 and 57, in the back of his ambulance between January 2010 and June 2013.
All the offences in the ambulance took place in Central Hawke's Bay.
Each of the women were in need of medical aid. They included a teenager who had been beaten by her boyfriend; a woman suffering depression and threatening to harm herself; a young woman with a terminal illness; and a woman who suffered from temporary paralysis.
Today, the mother of the terminally ill victim, who passed away in February this year, said King abused her daughter's trust and "took advantage of her vulnerability and weakness".
"My daughter was very sick -- you caused huge heartache and emotional pain to our family."
She said a "sense of dread" washed over the family every time her daughter required an ambulance.
"We dreaded seeing you or bumping into you in our small community."
She said King's "lovely" wife and children have also suffered and were "victims as we are".
She also said King failed to have the "decency to plead guilty", forcing her family to endure the trial and publicity in the press.
King staunchly denied all the crimes he committed, describing them during his police interview late last year as "bullshit".
King's lawyer, Bill Calver, said his client now admits he has an issue, but didn't want to accept his problems at the time of his offending.
He said King "succumbed to his weakness" and "base temptations" but was otherwise a model ambulance officer and citizen.
"Few [cases] have generated the publicity of this magnitude," Mr Calver said, adding the media coverage had already been a significant punishment for King.
Crown Prosecutor Steve Manning said King may simply be "continuing his manipulation" and "hoping his honour will give him a lesser sentence" if he shows remorse.
During King's trial last month an expert witness told the court about the discovery of of two "digital footprints" on the ambulance officer's cellphone after he sexually assaulted and made intimate recordings of a 15-year-old female patient.
The evidence indicated King had used his Samsung Galaxy S3 to record the teen after stopping the ambulance on the side of the road near Waipawa on the way to a medical centre in Waipukurau.
A second video was also created on King's phone outside the medical centre just minutes before the teenager fled from the rear of the ambulance, shouting "keep him away".
Mr Manning stated it was at this moment King met "[his] match in the form of a 15-year-old with a stroppy attitude".
The teenager's complaint led to the police investigation, headed by Detective Grant Jarvis.
King began his career with St John as a volunteer in 2007, and started working full time in 2009.
He married his current wife two years ago and was a respected member of the Central Hawke's Bay community.
However, he resigned in August last year, following the growing allegations against him.
At the end of the trial, Mr Manning described King's victims were shocked as he "confused what would have been genuine medical touching with sexual touching".
"In particular he took advantage of his trusted position as an ambulance officer. Who wouldn't trust a member of St John?" Mr Manning asked.
King also had administered his victims Entonox, a pain-relief gas, which knocked out his patients in the back of the ambulance, allowing him to easily commit his offences, Mr Manning said.
Earlier this month, King also pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual assault against two girls aged 16 and younger between 2002 and 2006 in Napier.
By Sam Hurley of Hawke's Bay Today
