Da Vinci High Court judgement 'contains secret code'

A secret code has been hidden in a UK High Court judgement by the judge at the centre of the Da Vinci Code copyright trial.

Mr Justice Peter Smith took a leaf out of Dan Brown’s global best-seller to hide his own message in the 71-page court document.

It emerged today that italicised letters in the first seven paragraphs of the document spell out “Smithy Code”.

Over the next few pages more letters stand out from the text in italics, but in an apparently random order.

The move to hide a message in a formal High Court judgment is thought to be unprecedented in legal history.

Judge Smith refused to confirm that the letters were a code, but said: “They don’t look like typos, do they?”

He said: “I can’t discuss the judgement, but I don’t see why a judgement should not be a matter of fun.”

He added that he would probably confirm it if someone broke the code, which he said was “not a difficult thing to do”.

The Judge ruled in favour of Dan Brown earlier this month after a lengthy hearing about the sources of The Da Vinci Code, which has sold more than 40 million copies.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who wrote The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, sued their mutual publisher, Random House, claiming that Brown had stolen their ideas.

Both books explore theories that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, that the couple had a child and that their bloodline still exists today.

Would-be code-breakers of the judgment could look at the alphabet “codex” code-breaking device found in the novel for inspiration.

The device takes the letters of the alphabet and matches them with another set of letters placed in a different order.

In the novel, Harvard professor Robert Langdon and French cryptographer Sophie Neveu use the code to try to unravel the location of the Holy Grail.

Lawyer Dan Tench, of London firm Olswang, said he noticed the code when he spotted odd italicised script in an online copy of the judgement.

He said: “To encrypt a message in this manner, in a High Court judgement no less? It’s out there.

“I think he was getting into the spirit of the thing. It doesn’t take away from the validity of the judgement. He was just having a bit of fun.”

A spokeswoman for the Judicial Office, which is responsible for running the judiciary, said she was unaware of the secret code until last night.

She said: “The fact that some of the letters are in italics does not in any way affect the judgement.”

Judge Smith emerged as a colourful character during the three-week trial, with a series of acerbic questions and thoughtful observations.

In his judgement, he hinted at his admiration for some the cunning word-play devices in The Da Vinci Code.

He said the fact that Mr Brown use an anagram of Leigh and Baigent’s names to form the character Sir Leigh Teabing was not “anything other than a compliment to them”.

But he added that it was not his job to comment on the literary merit of either publications.

He said: “As is usual with books that attract a lot of publicity, they have attracted the wrath of the literary experts of the world.

“Fortunately, it is not part of my judgment to assess the literary worth of the books or even the truth behind them.”

Judge Smith, 54, was appointed to the British High Courts of Justice, Chancery Division, in 2002.

In his Who’s Who entry he lists his interests as the Titanic Historical Society and Jackie Fisher, a British admiral best known for his efforts for naval reform.

Dan Brown’s novel won best book at last year’s British Book Awards and has earned the author more than £250m (€358m) since its publication in 2003.

The judgment can be found by following at the link: http://www.hmcourtsservice.gov.uk/images/judgment-files/baigent_v_rhg_0406.pdf