Chelsea captain John Terry staunchly defended himself on the witness stand on Tuesday, denying prosecutors' suggestions that he racially abused a black opponent as an "instinctive'' reaction to being taunted over his private life.
The veteran defender also refused to apologise to Anton Ferdinand as he took the stand on the second day of his trial for an alleged racist slur hurled at the Queens Park Rangers player last October, which led to Terry being stripped of the England captaincy.
Terry and Ferdinand had traded insults after a disputed penalty call in the west London derby, with the Chelsea star goaded about an alleged affair with the former girlfriend of an ex-teammate.
"The truth of the matter is you are not a racist ... you used racial language that day because you snapped and it was instinctive,'' prosecutor Duncan Penny suggested to Terry.
"You were fed up with people abusing you over the issue with your wife.''
Terry, however, responded that "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 said.
