A SENIOR Hampshire ambulance officer has been suspended for a year after making bogus emergency calls to help his lover in the control room hit her targets.

Simon Surplice was today found guilty of a series of charges including the faking of six emergency call-outs to boost the response targets of his mistress Zoe Snook, who also worked for the South Central Ambulance Service.

The Health Professions Council found that the married paramedic also interfered with and disabled the trust's vehicle tracking system, so that he could meet up for sex with his lover without being caught, who he had admitted making steamy and explicit calls to while on duty.

But the 46-year-old was cleared of arranging another fake call in order to provide a fly-past at a colleague's funeral at St Peter's Church, Bishops Waltham, in October 2008.

The panel concluded that Surplice had committed serious failings that constituted misconduct which undermined public confidence in him and the profession.

He was handed a year-long suspension order to protect the public and “mark the seriousness of the misconduct”.

Surplice will be required to attend a review hearing before being return to the HPC register, and was told he should provide evidence of reflective learning, and relevant work and professional development during his suspension.