Met officer in sexual assault case suggests DNA was transferred after handshake

A police officer accused of sexually assaulting a woman while on duty said the transfer of his DNA may have occurred after she shook his hand.

Pc Fabian Aguilar-Delgado jointed the Metropolitan Police in 2019 (Kirsty O’Connor/PA) (PA Wire)

A Metropolitan Police officer accused of sexually assaulting a woman while on duty claims his DNA may have ended up on her breast after she shook his “sweaty” hand.

Pc Fabian Aguilar-Delgado, 40, told a jury he was “disgusted” by allegations he kissed, groped and sucked the complainant’s breast while in full uniform on a call-out to her home over a domestic incident.

The Spanish-born officer, who worked as cabin crew for Ryanair and Norwegian Airlines before joining the Met in 2019, denies a single count of sexual assault on 24 May, 2020.

Southwark Crown Court has heard that Aguilar-Delgado’s DNA was later found on swabs on the woman’s right nipple and breast.

Giving evidence on Friday, he told jurors he was “shocked” and thought it was “impossible” when he was first told about the discovery.

The way she grabbed and shook my hand to say thank you, it wasn't like a normal handshake

Pc Fabian Aguilar-Delgado

Asked how he thought his DNA got onto the woman’s breast, the Pc said he had been close to her “talking loudly” and “maybe spitting or coughing”, as well as “touching handles” in her house in Croydon, south London.

He also suggested the transfer may have been as a result of her shaking his hand.

“The way she grabbed and shook my hand to say thank you, it wasn’t like a normal handshake,” he said.

“She just put the full arm in and grabbed it.”

The officer said that his hands were “sweaty” because it was a hot day and he had been biting his fingernails.

A video of a reconstruction of the alleged handshake was played in court and Aguilar-Delgado showed his chewed down nails to the jury.

“I remember that she went back and I don’t know if she touched herself to pull her top up,” he said.

At the time of the incident Aguilar-Delgado, from Crawley, West Sussex, had only been out of training for around a month and he said he was not wearing a body-worn camera because there were “not enough” for everyone.

He said the woman, who is alcohol-dependent, was “confused and agitated” when he arrived on the scene with a colleague and he found her difficult to understand because she was “erratic and nervous” and “under the influence of alcohol”.

She earlier told jurors the officer French-kissed her, put his hands down her top and sucked her breast after offering to search her house for her abusive ex-partner while his colleague was in the car outside. The trial continues.