Former Manhattan Beach schoolteacher Aran Delaney took the stand this week in his own defense to tell his side of the story of what happened the night of June 28, 2003, during a trial in which he is accused of raping a woman on a Hermosa Beach walkstreet.

Five weeks into the proceedings, the trial is expected to continue into next week when lawyers could give their closing arguments on the case.

The people’s case rested last week with the testimony of its expert witness, a nurse who examined the alleged rape victim. The defense has since called its first witness – a woman who lives in a house adjacent to where the incident occurred. As of press time, Delaney took the stand this week as well as an ergonomics engineer who testified about the woman’s alleged fall over the walkstreet wall and into a bush.

According to Delaney, 28, the victim known in court as “Gina M,” in her mid-30s who was also a teacher at the time of the incident, first met Delaney at the North End bar when he arrived there around 10 p.m. after coming from a party. At the time, Delaney lived roughly four blocks from the establishment. He testified that sex with the victim was completely consensual.

According to the initial police report, Delaney and two men he was with at the time, who were part of a group of rugby players, approached the victim and her friends inside the bar. Delaney reportedly used vulgar sexual language in front of the victim and acted aggressively toward her.

Delaney testified that the only time he used crude language was while telling jokes (one about Superman and Wonder Woman) or while giving the woman a compliment on her physical features like her breasts.

The victim also testified that Delaney exposed his penis to her inside the bar. Delaney, on the other hand, claimed that he never exposed himself, and that he was flirting with and was attracted to her. He also said she was flirting and appeared to be attracted to him as well.

Delaney testified that he and the victim left the bar to smoke marijuana. He said he felt “buzzed” at the time and she appeared to be drunk. Delaney said he drank two beers at the party and possibly a mixed drink, and left for the bar where he had a Crown (whiskey) and Coke, and a vodka cranberry.

The police report stated that the victim refused his advances while one of the other men – Keith McNamara – bought her a drink. Soon after, the victim felt very sick and intoxicated. Deputy District Attorney Jodi Link argues that McNamara, who was with Delaney that night, slipped the woman the date rape drug GHB. A previous witness testified Delaney met McNamara for the first time that night. The woman said she needed some air and Delaney accompanied her outside.

Delaney also testified that at no time did the victim appear to be having trouble walking or speaking, but she appeared to be drunk by the volume level at which she spoke.

Delaney said they left the bar together, and began kissing and groping each other outside.

The two ended up on a walkstreet in the 2600 block of Hermosa Avenue together where according to the victim’s statement, Delaney put his hands down her pants. The victim then stated she pulled his hands out of her pants at which point he leaned her over the walkstreet wall where he raped and sodomized her.

Delaney contends the woman reached into his shorts and touched his genital area first, initiating a higher degree of intimacy, and he then followed suit into her pants. Delaney said they then began to have consensual sex and that the woman was never leaning over the wall but rather had her hands on the wall and the rest of her body away from the brick surface that is about 3 or 4 feet in height. Delaney did testify that the woman did fall while pulling up her pants after intercourse and during the incident he never once knowingly touched her anus with any part of his body. Defense attorneys argue that the injuries to the woman’s collarbone and her left shoulder were results of the fall she took while under the influence of alcohol.

Last week, Link and a team of defense lawyers headed by Daniel Davis questioned forensic nurse specialist Jan Hare, who examined the alleged rape victim.

Link questioned Hare at length on the victim’s injuries after the alleged rape, including a laceration to the head, a bruise on the inside of her knee and an abrasion on her left wrist, along with injuries to the woman’s vaginal region and anal canal, which the latter, Delaney said he did not knowingly penetrate with his penis. The defense argues that any bleeding or lacerations could have come from the nurse in the examination, using a tool to detect such injuries.

She told the nurse that her last sexual encounter prior to the incident was in February 2003 during which time she was in a relationship. The woman said her injuries were partly due to being thrown over the walkstreet into a bush by Delaney, a charge the defendant denies.

The defense also argues that the woman’s injuries are not consistent with rape or being thrown over a wall, and called an ergonomics engineer following Delaney’s testimony. The engineer examined the area of the alleged rape and said the woman would have most likely suffered tears in her clothing if she was thrown into the shrubbery lining the wall since it was so dense and consisted mostly of thick branches.

Delaney, who once worked as fourth-grade teacher at American Martyrs Catholic School in Manhattan Beach, turned himself in to police July 3 and pleaded not guilty to the charges of forcible rape, penetration with a foreign object and sodomy during his arraignment in October. Prosecutors also charged him with the one count of causing great bodily injury due to the woman’s broken collarbone.