England footballer John Terry has denied in court that he "snapped" and used a racist obscenity after being taunted by Anton Ferdinand.
Terry, 31, is accused of calling Ferdinand a "f****** black c***" during a Premier League match on October 23 last year.
On Tuesday at Westminster Magistrates Court, prosecutor Duncan Penny said he had "snapped" over Ferdinand's taunts about his alleged affair with former team-mate Wayne Bridge's ex-girlfriend.
He said: "You're not a racist are you? But you used racist language because you snapped and it was instinctive. You were fed up with people abusing you over the issue with your wife."
Terry replied: "It was almost two years on and I had heard it a million times before.
"If I was going to snap, I would have snapped long before."
He agreed that he had been "stitched up right and proper" by the allegations.
Terry claims he was sarcastically repeating the words that QPR centre-half Ferdinand mistakenly thought he had used.
He denies a racially-aggravated public order offence.
Mr Penny asked why, on Terry's account, he had repeated the racial abuse.
The prosecutor said: "You said that your response was to repeat back 'a black c***', or 'calling me a black c***?' How about 'what?' Straightforward, 'what?"'
Terry replied: "At the time, I was shocked and angry. I had never been accused of it on a football pitch and repeated it back."
He added: "Hindsight's a wonderful thing. At the time I was shocked, I was angry, you can't control your emotions."
The defender said he would have repeated the word "n*****" back if it had been used.
Earlier the father-of-two, wearing a dark suit, said he would be goaded about the alleged affair with Vanessa Perroncel at "more or less every game".
But he said he would "just laugh it off basically".
After the match, at Loftus Road on October 23 last year, Terry said he twice asked Ferdinand if he had accused him of using the racist insult.
"I said: 'I thought you were accusing me of calling you a black c***'. His reply to that was 'no, no, no. We all said things we shouldn't have said, that's the end of it'.
"I asked him twice and he said no, I thought that was the end of it."
Terry said he had not considered apologising to Ferdinand because the QPR player had accused him.
"Why would I apologise to Anton when he is the one who accused me? What I said was in response to what Anton said to me."
The trial was adjourned to Wednesday.
Update:
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what do you think?
JAMES HOUGHTON
The only one to win out of this pantomime is the solicitors
Alan Dixon
If we are to use LIP Reading in the football matches and punish the players, it should be used at all football matches, as the person most players abuse and use foul language at is the referee, hence bring it in and see how many players are punished. The clubs would be in an uproar if players are banned. Please go down the main strreet of your city town and or village, hurl abuse at the policeman, you will be punished for it, If John Terry is PUNISHED for his outburst or handbags as they state, sign on the lip readers and punish the players each week, and the ref will suddenly do his job without abuse. Run the game like rugby, rough and tumble but very good disciplne.
Mandy Fullerton
1:13pm on 10/7/2012
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