UK:Ambulance Driver Had Conviction for “Queer KIlling"
A spokesman for the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust said tonight that the trust had fully cooperated with both the police
and with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) over Robert King's offences.
'The trust was only recently made aware by the police of the serious conviction that ex-employee Robert King was sentenced for, as a minor, in 1981, previous to his employment with one of our predecessor organisations, Two Shires Ambulance Service.
'Mr King joined Two Shires Ambulance Service in 1994 and had failed to declare his conviction when applying for a job with the Trust. Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks were not in existence at this time and consequently the Trust was unaware of his background.
'South Central Ambulance Service has a rigorous process in place for carrying out CRB checks on anyone applying for positions that put them in contact with patients and their families and as such carries out over 600 CRB checks every year.
'We have also been retrospectively CRB checking any member of frontline staff that came from other organisations before SCAS was formed in 2006.
'The trust was only recently made aware by the police of the serious conviction that ex-employee Robert King was sentenced for, as a minor, in 1981, previous to his employment with one of our predecessor organisations, Two Shires Ambulance Service.
'Mr King joined Two Shires Ambulance Service in 1994 and had failed to declare his conviction when applying for a job with the Trust. Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks were not in existence at this time and consequently the Trust was unaware of his background.
'South Central Ambulance Service has a rigorous process in place for carrying out CRB checks on anyone applying for positions that put them in contact with patients and their families and as such carries out over 600 CRB checks every year.
'We have also been retrospectively CRB checking any member of frontline staff that came from other organisations before SCAS was formed in 2006.
'CRB reports look at a person's criminal records at a point in time.
'If however a member of staff commits a criminal offence after the check has taken place, SCAS is automatically notified under the Notifiable Occupations Scheme of the offence and is able to take immediate action to investigate the individual as appropriate.'
'If however a member of staff commits a criminal offence after the check has taken place, SCAS is automatically notified under the Notifiable Occupations Scheme of the offence and is able to take immediate action to investigate the individual as appropriate.'
King, from Merton Road, Ambrosden, Oxfordshire, was locked up by a judge at Reading Crown Court in January 1981 for the murder of gay photographer Robin Warren whom he attacked with other youths at a public toilet in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
Claim: The court heard the police found an open bottle of Jack Daniel's whisky in the ambulance response car driven by Robert King
The jury was told that King smashed a bottle an used it to gouge Mr Warren’s neck, slicing into his jugular vein. He bled to death in the street in September 1980.
King was said to have plotted with other teenagers at the time to go on a 'queer bashing' mission to 'have fun' with homosexual men at the public toilets in Castle Hill in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
Then aged 16 years, King was ordered by Mr Justice Woolf to be 'detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure'.
He was also convicted of taking a motor vehicle without consent at the same sentencing hearing on January 29, 1981.
During the eight-day murder trial the jury heard that the youths went out with the intention of assaulting a homosexual.
Mr Warren was struck with a bottle wielded by King and then staggered 100 yards where he collapsed and died.
He was also hit with a piece of wood and kicked and punched but the cause of death was a neck wound made by the broken bottle wielded by King.
At the time King’s father, Terry, said at his home in Maidenhead: 'Robert accepted manslaughter but no way was he guilty of murder.
BBC
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