Terry 'used racial abuse'

John Terry arrives at court for his trial this week

13 July 2012

Footballer John Terry was using "straightforward racial abuse" against Anton Ferdinand rather than sarcastically repeating a racist slur, a court has heard.

Terry, 31, is accused of calling QPR centre-half Ferdinand a "f****** black c***" during a Premier League match on October 23 last year.

Making his closing speech at Westminster Magistrates' Court, prosecutor Duncan Penny said on Terry's account, Ferdinand had used the words "calling me a black c***". Terry claims that he simply repeated back the slur that Ferdinand wrongly thought he had used, and denies a racially aggravated public order offence.

This meant that Terry added the word "f******", and had also used the word 'and' before the racial obscenity, Mr Penny said.

"If it's rhetorical repetition, why does the word 'and' feature at all? Why are any other words spoken by Mr Terry at all, beyond a black c***?," Mr Penny asked

The pair had traded insults in the run-up to the alleged racist insult. Ferdinand taunted Terry about his alleged affair with a team mate's ex-girlfriend, while Terry implied the QPR player had bad breath.

Mr Penny said: "The words 'and' and 'f******' are Mr Terry's words and nobody else's," he said. "Are they simply a plain response, a retort, lashing out verbally just as Mr Terry did in the original exchange?

"Just as he did with the hand over the mouth to imply bad breath, just as he did with the 'f*** off, f*** off' directed towards Mr Ferdinand, and finally, when he was fed up, he picked up on the topic of Mr Ferdinand's abuse, namely the (alleged) extra-marital affair, and retorted with 'and yours', or something to that effect, and straightforward racial abuse."

He said it was unlikely that Ferdinand would have had the "motivation or frankly the sophistication" in the heat of the moment to make up an allegation that Terry had used racial abuse.

"A false allegation of racism would be an accusation which involved more sophisticated thought processes than had hitherto been going on, on that football pitch," Mr Penny said.