1. Father–of–four Lyttleton, who was long–standing president of the Society For Italic Handwriting, married twice, first in 1'48 and then again following a divorce in 1'52.

2. By using this it could be possible to find out how the italic letters could be matched with another set of letters placed in a different order to spell out a phrase.

3. Article continues Mr Smith, whose capacity for whimsy suggests that he is wasted in the high court and should immediately set up as a novelist, disclosed that his 71–page judgment contains a code of its own, a devious acrostic composed of carefully concealed italic letters.

4. He was just having a bit of fun." Yesterday the judge was being somewhat cryptic himself when asked about the italic letters, saying: "They don‘t look like typos, do they?" The judge, 53, who lists his interest in Who‘s Who as the Titanic Historical Society and Jackie Fisher, a British admiral best known for his efforts for naval reform, added: "I can‘t discuss the judgment, but I don‘t see why a judgment should not be a matter of fun." He said he would probably confirm it if someone broke the code, which he claims is "not a difficult thing to do". The judge ruled in favour of the American author Dan Brown after a three–week hearing about the sources of The Da Vinci Code, which has sold more than 40million copies and earned Brown an estimated 250million.