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The former captain of the England football team, John Terry, has been found not guilty of racially abusing the QPR defender Anton Ferdinand during a vigorous exchange of insults in a match last year.
At the end of a four-day trial, the chief magistrate, Howard Riddle, cleared the 31-year-old Chelsea captain of a racially aggravated public order offence.
Terry left the court shortly after the verdict, making no comment. He was cheered by a small group of Chelsea supporters. Speaking outside the court, his lawyer, Dan Morrison, said: "[John Terry] did not racially abuse Mr Ferdinand and the court has accepted this.
"John would like to thank his legal team for their hard work and his family, friends and Chelsea Football Club for their support."
The Chelsea chairman, Bruce Buck, said: "We are pleased that John can now put his mind to football and go back to training and do what he's done for many years."
Ferdinand's parents, who had attended every day of the trial, made no comment.
The trial focused on words spoken by the centre-back during a heated altercation with Ferdinand, 27, after a penalty appeal.
In his verdict, Riddle said there was "no doubt" that Terry had uttered the words "****ing black ****" during the final stages of the match at Loftus Road last autumn. He had done so in anger, he said.
But it was "impossible to be sure" both of what Terry said and what Ferdinand had said to him.
Riddle concluded: "It is therefore possible that what he [Terry] said was not intended as an insult, but rather as a challenge to what he believed had been said to him. In those circumstances, there being a doubt, the only verdict the court can record is one of not guilty."
Defending the decision to bring the case to court, Alison Saunders, the chief crown prosecutor for London, said: "The very serious allegation at the heart of this case was one of racial abuse. It was our view that this was not 'banter' on the football pitch and that the allegation should be judged by a court. The chief magistrate agreed that Mr Terry had a case to answer, but having heard all of the evidence he acquitted Mr Terry of a racially aggravated offence. That is justice being done and we respect the chief magistrate's decision."
But fans criticised the fact that the trial had taken place. "What a waste of time. What a waste of taxpayers' money. The case should never have been brought," David Johnson of the Chelsea fanzine CFCUK told the BBC.
Lord Ouseley, chair of the Kick It Out campaign against racism in football, said it would now see if the Football Association would investigate the allegations. "Kick It Out notes the decision reached and now awaits the pronouncements from the Football Association to any subsequent investigation into the matter. It will be interesting to hear from other organisations this will impact on, from governing bodies to leagues and clubs, and how they deem matters like this to be dealt with in the future," he said.
Footage of the exchange in the 84th minute of the match on 23 October last year was seen by more than 2 million Sky viewers, and uploaded to YouTube.
Unbroadcast video taken for Chelsea FC training purposes was also examined as part of the case.
During the crucial eight seconds that cameras were on Terry, his mouth is obscured at times by his Chelsea team-mate John Obi Mikel. The prosecution alleged Terry used the words "**** off, **** off", "yeah, yeah", "and", "you ****ing black ****, ****ing knobhead".
The prosecutor Duncan Penny suggested this was Terry responding to a "slow fist pump" gesture by Ferdinand, relating to an alleged affair between Terry and the ex-girlfriend of Terry's former team-mate Wayne Bridge, Vanessa Perroncel. Penny told Riddle the "and" could have been Terry saying "and yours", referring to Ferdinand's girlfriend.
Terry had "snapped", when his "blood was up" after being "goaded" by Ferdinand over the alleged affair, Penny had argued.
George Carter-Stephenson QC, for Terry, said the words were uttered because Terry was repeating "by way of sarcastic exclamation" an accusation he perceived Ferdinand had made on the pitch to him that he had called the QPR player "a black ****".
Ferdinand denied saying that on the pitch to Terry. His account was: "He called me a ****, and I called him a **** back. And he gave me a gesture as if to say my breath smelled. I said to him: "How can you call me a ****? You shagged your team-mate's missus, you're a ****."
The case was unusual in that the chief prosecution witness, Ferdinand, had not himself complained of racial abuse. Police proceedings were initiated as a result of a single complaint made by an off-duty police officer watching the game on television. The prosecution said it was "straightforward racial abuse" and the words had been uttered by way of insult. Ferdinand had not heard the words spoken by Terry, and only saw footage about one hour after the game, at 7pm in the QPR players' lounge when his then girlfriend showed him a YouTube video that had been posted. Even then, despite telling the court he would have been "livid" if he had heard it on the pitch, he did nothing.
The remarks were "very hurtful", he said, though he believed the matter should have been handled by the Football Association.
Ashley Cole, Terry's Chelsea and England team-mate, said he believed the case should never have come to court. "I think we shouldn't be sitting here," he said, in the witness box.
Cole was called as a "reluctant" witness, and admitted the case had caused him conflict. He said he was a close friend of Terry's, but also close to Ferdinand's brother, Rio, and had known the Ferdinand family "for a long time". He said he had not clearly heard comments made by Ferdinand, but believed he saw him say "Bridgey or black".
The 31-year-old left-back told the court that, during the final few minutes of the game, which QPR won 1-0, Terry had spoken to him about Ferdinand. "He said: 'He thinks I'm being racist', or something along them lines."
The defence said nobody on the pitch had heard Terry's words, and he was the only witness to what he had said. Neither was there footage of what Ferdinand had said. It was possible, the defence said, that Terry had misinterpreted Ferdinand saying "Bridge" or "black", or he had heard a voice in the crowd say "black" simultaneously with Ferdinand moving his lips.
After the game, Terry asked Ferdinand to the Chelsea dressing room. Terry said he asked him: "'What happened out there, geez? Was you accusing me of calling you a black ****?' – my exact words – and he said: 'No, not at all.'" Terry then said "good" and the two agreed it was "just handbags, innit".
The timing of the dressing room meeting was a crucial part of the case. Ferdinand believed it to have been 45 minutes after the whistle. Terry thought 15 minutes, just enough time for him to have a quick shower and "do my hair". Cole estimated it to be between 25-30 minutes. It was crucial because of the suggestion that Terry may have seen the YouTube footage before calling in Ferdinand to "smooth it over" and "put it to bed".
Evidence from the driver of the Chelsea team coach seemed to put the time of the team leaving at around 6.30pm. The defence dismissed the YouTube evidence, saying it was not possible to determine when exactly the video would have been available to view.
During an FA interview five days after the match, Terry agreed: "If you watch the video and me, watching the video, you can quite easily say that that doesn't look good." But, he said, it had to be viewed "in the context of what I thought Anton accused me of".
At his trial Terry stressed he had issued his statement, giving his version of events, before seeing any footage "because I had nothing to hide" and he knew "there was nothing out there that would show that I had done anything wrong". As to "snapping", it was "almost two years on" [after the affair allegation] "and I'd heard it a million times before", said Terry, who was "shocked and angry" at what he believed Ferdinand had accused him of.
At times, it was difficult to remember who was on trial. Ferdinand's parents, Janice Lavender and Julian Ferdinand, sat in the public gallery as Carter-Stephenson attacked their son's testimony, claiming: "Ferdinand is fundamentally unreliable in terms of conversations and events".
Reminding the court Ferdinand "did not wish to be here", Penny said the case would "follow him for the rest of his career". What was in it for him? Penny asked. "You may wish to ask the question whether he was brave in choosing to give evidence".
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