Leeds United Chat • Re: The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Mon 4th November) - Leeds back in automatic places but Casilla facing 12 game ban
John Terry was alleged to have made a crude racist remark against Anton Ferdinand in the course of a televised Premier League football match between Chelsea FC and Queen's Park Rangers FC. Terry's remarks were seen in ten seconds of widely broadcast and re-broadcast close-up,[17] and he was prosecuted under public order crime provisions, which include offences which are racially aggravated.[18]
Terry's defence argued that the remark was made in response to an earlier accusation from Ferdinand; Terry was just "sarcastically repeating a racist slur" he thought Anton Ferdinand had wrongly accused him of making,[19] to refute the perceived allegation and to establish what had been said. In a joint report, two expert speecheaders corroborated the content of Terry's broadcast remarks, but could not infer why they were said, since there was no video record of the preceding context. The magistrate ruled that Terry could not be found guilty because of this uncertainty.[20][21]
The Football Association, whose Independent Regulatory Commission examined the case with a view to disciplinary action, came to a different conclusion. The Commission dismissed the lip readers' evidence, claiming "it is to be observed that the Chief Magistrate did not derive any real assistance from the evidence of the two lip readers who were called to give evidence",[22] although the Chief Magistrate had himself spoken of the importance of the lip reading evidence: "Other words appear to be spoken.
Both parties have agreed that expert evidence from lip readers is necessary to say what those words are. It is axiomatic that expert evidence is not called unless a particular expertise is needed to give an opinion to the court which the court cannot readily form itself."[20] The Commission based its decision (which required a lower standard of proof) on a transcription of the video evidence [23] that conflicted with the evidence of the lip readers.[20]:4 as well as on disputed circumstantial evidence and references to the disputed post-incident behaviour of Anton Ferdinand, John Terry, Ashley Cole and David Barnard.[24][25]