Peter Smith (judge)
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Sir Peter Winston Smith (born 1 May 1952), styled The Hon. Mr Justice Peter Smith, is a British jurist serving as a Judge of the High Court of Justice who has presided over several prominent cases. These include a suit between boxer Lennox Lewis and his promoter Panos Eliades, as well as a copyright case involving the novel The Da Vinci Code. In the latter case he rejected a claim by authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail that Dan Brown had copied major themes from their work.
[edit] Biography
Smith was born in Taiping, Malaysia to George Arthur Smith and Iris Muriel Smith, while his father was posted abroad. He grew up with five siblings in Hornsea, East Yorkshire, and attended grammar school in nearby Bridlington.
He read law at Selwyn College, Cambridge. After receiving a BA in 1974 and an MA in 1976, Smith briefly practiced in Liverpool before becoming a law lecturer at Manchester University from 1977-1983. He then practiced law on the Northern Circuit from 1979-2002, as well as being Assistant Recorder from 1994-97, a Deputy High Court Judge from 1996-2002; and a Recorder from 1997-2002.
In 1980, Smith married Diane Dalgliesh. They had one son and two daughters. He is a member of the Titanic Historical Society and the British Titanic Society. Other hobbies included being a "Jackie Fisher fan", reading military history, and football.
[edit] Da Vinci Code case and the "Smithy Code"
- For more about the case see The Da Vinci Code.
In April 2006, Mr Justice Peter Smith ruled that Dan Brown had not breached the copyright of Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of the historical book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. While Brown had taken ideas from the earlier book, he did not copy the "central theme" of his book from there. As ideas themselves can not be copyrighted, Smith ruled that Brown had therefore not substantially copied the original work. [1]
Mr Justice Peter Smith embedded a code within the 7 April 2006 printed judgement from the case. The first few pages contain scattered letters which were italicised; a coded message placed as an amusement. The first section spells 'smithy code', followed by a number of other seemingly random letters. The judge stated that he couldn't talk about the code as he couldn't talk about the ruling, but would confirm any correct attempt to break it. However, it was later learned that he had given a series of email hints about the code, which was finally announced as cracked on 28 April 2006 by Daniel Tench, a lawyer and media journalist for The Guardian newspaper. [2] The plaintext reads: "Smithy Code. Jackie Fisher, who are you? Dreadnought." This is a reference to one of Smith's hobbies, Admiral Lord Fisher, who designed the battleship HMS Dreadnought. The ship was launched in February 1906, almost exactly 100 years before the start of the trial.
[edit] References
- Who's Who, 2004
- Judge creates own Da Vinci code – BBC News
- Matthews, Athalie. "From codes and naval heroes to Kylie's bottom". The Times, 30 May 2006.
