A few hours ago in London John Terry entered Westminster Magistrates’ Court to face charges that he racially abused QPR defender Anton Ferdinand in a premier league match last October.

This is old news, but new details have emerged from the opening day of the trial. One, Ferdinand didn’t intially hear what Terry said, only after reviewing a youtube clip of the incident did he realize what happened. Prosecutors claim Terry unleashed the racial epithet after Ferdinand made light of the Chelsea captain’s rocky personal life.

The Associated Press’ Rob Harris:

Terry claimed Ferdinand had shouted a “number of abusive comments” toward him and made “at least one obscene gesture with his hand, a pumping action clearly directed at me and no other Chelsea player.”

Racist taunts versus the jerking off motion. 2011 was a special time. From Harris we also get this gem of an exchange between Ashley Cole and Ferdinand:

“You can’t talk to JT like that,” Cole said, according to Ferdinand, who “responded to him by saying, ‘I’m a big man — I can talk to anyone I want, the way I want.“’

Hard to find anyone endearing in this matter to be honest. The crux of the trial will be the testimony from several lip readers- not making this up – who reviewed tape of the incident. For up to the minute information on the trial, Sam Wallace’s twitter feed is indispensable. From Wallace we get the latest from lip reader number one:

Oh to be the court stenographer at Westminster today. But in all seriousness this is the worst trial ever.