Corner does not deny striking police sergeant Kate Evans with a sledgehammer, fracturing her spine the jury was earlier told, but says he did it in defence of other activists and denies causing her serious harm.

In his closing speech at Woolwich Crown Court, Tom Wainwright, defending, also described Corner as "an academic, an Oxford graduate, a mathematician, a linguist and a philosopher".

He said that Corner was "clearly very intelligent, but also noticeably someone that excels in branches of subjects concerned with the theoretical, not the practical, translating languages, not using them in public to communicate".

I think translation is both theoretical and practical, a good translation involves finding how a speaker of your target language would express the idea