Walter Mitty call handler who pretended to be paramedic to impress Tinder dates is jailed for 12 years after rapes and sex attacks that left victims suicidal
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A string of women have revealed they were left suicidal and wracked by horrific nightmares in the wake of a fake paramedic’s sex attacks as he was jailed for 12 years today.
‘Predatory’ Jamie Kadolski, 24, was an ambulance call handler and first responder who wore his NHS uniform on his dating app profile photo.
But the Walter Mitty character concealed his junior role when he met women by placing stickers over personal information on his ID card and instead claimed he saved lives on ambulances.
His offending came to light in November 2023 when a woman contacted police to make an allegation against him.
Yet he continued to commit offences against other women while on bail and was arrested again in March and April this year.
Attacks were carried out at a victim’s flat, in his own home in Norwich, Norfolk, and in his car after driving a victim to an isolated spot at Hempton, near Fakenham.
During his sentencing hearing at Norwich Crown Court today, his victims bravely took the stand to describe the devastating effect he had had on their lives.
One woman, who spoke quietly with her head down, said: ‘I did not think I would make it to this day alive. I have attempted suicide twice over the last two months.
Jamie Kadolski, 24, was an ambulance call handler and first responder who wore his NHS uniform on his dating app profile photo
His offending came to light in November 2023 when a woman contacted police to make an allegation against him but he continued to commit offences against other women while on bail
Cold Kadolski smiled for the camera at a police station as officers took his mugshot
‘I am a wreck and a shell of who I once was. I have forgotten what it feels like to feel safe.’
She said she had lost her job working in a care home for people with dementia after having panic attacks when paramedics came in, with her manager telling her she had to leave.
The woman added: ‘I cannot bear to tell my friends or family what he did to me. My relationship with my family will never be the same… I am now terrified of men.’
She also apologised to other victims, saying: ‘While I got on with my life he was attacking innocent people. I am sorry I was not brave enough [to report him sooner].’
Another victim described how she took an overdose in November 2023 after being sexually assaulted by Kadolski two months earlier.
‘I could not stop thinking about what happened to me,’ she said, adding she quit her job and would lie in bed all day afterwards.
Telling the hushed court room that she had had tattoos to cover her arms where she had self-harmed, she went on: ‘My mental health took a rapid decline. I went to a bridge and wanted to die. I ended up being sectioned.’
A third woman dabbed at her eyes with tissues as she struggled to compose herself.
He concealed his junior role when he met women by placing stickers over personal information on his ID card and instead claimed he saved lives on ambulances
Attacks were carried out at a victim’s flat, in his own home in Norwich, Norfolk, and in his car after driving a victim to an isolated spot at Hempton, near Fakenham
‘Since being raped my life has changed... I could not tell my family for years. I never did. They all found out on their own and the word spread,’ she said.
‘I never felt so humiliated, shamed or disappointed at that moment. I cannot accept the reality of it when I sleep.’
She recalled being held 'face down by a man who claimed he loved me' adding: ‘Almost every night I have nightmares that he rapes me over and over… the joy of being in a relationship has been ripped away from me.’
The court heard a psychological report had found the defendant – who still claims he is innocent and plans to appeal against his conviction – pretended to be a paramedic to help with his ‘chronic low self-esteem’.
The expert who wrote it concluded: ‘He was prepared to deceive for the psychological benefit he received.
‘Boosting his fragile ego… the deceit was to satisfy his own needs to achieve self-worth.’
Jailing Kadolski for 12 years with a three-year extended licence, Judge Anthony Bate said he had wilfully ‘misled’ his victims’
‘Each expected to be safe in your company and able to enjoy a healthy and fulfilling relationship…[You] had a need to achieve dominance and enhance your status,’ he told the defendant, who showed no emotion throughout the hearing.
In a police interview, the fantasist – who said he was looking for ‘short-term fun’ on Tinder - told officers he wouldn’t have been capable of pinning someone down as he had suffered sexual abuse as a child
The judge, who also imposed an indefinite sexual harm prevention order, added: ‘You continue to pose a high risk of sexual offending against women. You are, for the time being, to be considered a dangerous offender.’
In a police interview, the fantasist – who said he was looking for ‘short-term fun’ on Tinder - told officers he wouldn’t have been capable of pinning someone down as he had suffered sexual abuse as a child.
Kadolski also denied arguing with one of his accusers. He told police he remembered her crying on one occasion and coldly added: ‘I’m not the best with empathy or sympathy.’
The woman who was attacked at Hempton told the court how she met the defendant on Tinder in 2022 and admitted she wanted to ‘get to know each other and see if the chemistry was there’.
Some messages were ‘a bit flirty’ and sex was a possibility but she described how he undressed her and grabbed her breasts ‘aggressively’, as well as pulling her hair when they had sex in the back of his car.
She said she was unable to tell him to stop because she had ‘frozen’ with fear and felt ‘very vulnerable’.
‘I just wanted it to stop and to end,’ she said.
Another victim complained Kadolski had ‘pulled her hair aggressively’ to keep her head in his lap while unzipping her shorts and sexually assaulting her at his flat.
Ambulances queued outside of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital - where Kadolski also worked
‘I had to push his hand away, get up and do up my shorts,’ she said.
‘There was no consent in the first place. At no point did I say that what was happening to me was okay with me.’
Kadolski, who also worked as a healthcare assistant at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, was convicted of three rapes, two counts of assault by penetration and a sexual assault against the first victim in November last year following the trial.
He was cleared of attempting to suffocate her by putting a dog collar on her so tight that she lost consciousness and another count of rape.
The jury also convicted him of sexual assault and assault by penetration against two other victims.
Kadolski, whose offences covered an 18-month period, was cleared of raping a fourth woman.
The defendant, who resigned from the East of England Ambulance Service (EEAS), had faced further charges of raping a woman while she slept and false imprisonment of a woman who said she was locked in a bathroom.
Kadolski also worked as a healthcare assistant at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (pictured)
But during the trial the court was told he had no case to answer on the charges and the jury was ordered to return not guilty verdicts.
Detective Constable Claire Floyd, who led the investigation, described Kadolski as ‘predatory and remorseless’ after the hearing and paid tribute to his victims coming forward.
‘The incredible strength and courage these women have shown throughout the investigation and criminal justice process cannot be overstated,’ she said.
‘All have suffered traumatic ordeals at Kadolski’s hands. It is thanks to them that he is now behind bars and no longer able to cause harm to anyone else.’
EEAS paramedic Andrew Wheeler, 46, was jailed for 21 years in 2021 after being convicted of sex attacks against two women and a girl.
One victim, a nurse, was raped at an ambulance station and assaulted a year later when he treated her as a patient in an ambulance.
Another victim was an alcoholic who was told by Wheeler that nobody would believe her because of her drink problem.
The girl was aged nine or ten when she was touched on the inner thigh by the defendant, who was also involved with St John Ambulance.
In 2023, the troubled organisation was accused of ‘institutional racism’ and staff branded ‘xenophobic’, with colleagues complaining that offensive behaviour was often dismissed as ‘banter’.
