These are the hints of Mr Justice Peter Smith on how to solve the Smithy Code contained in his judgment on the recent Da Vinci Code case. (The Judicial Communications Office said: "We're not expecting the judge to make any more comments on it.")

Da Vinci Code Hints

1. HBHG refers to the Dossiers Secret and the hidden message. It is revealed by spotting that certain random letters appear to be different in form from the majority of the text.

2. Applying that to the judgment reveals the following highlighted letters:

SMITHYCODEJAEIEXTOSTGPSACGREAMQWFKADPMQZVZ

(the first part reveals there is a message)

3. There is no significance to the placing of the letters in the text

4. DVC also uses codes. The most liked one is apparently a numerical one (p.255 The Fibonacci Sequence) .In the book it is changed.

5. The correct sequence up to 21 is:

1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21

6. The code is created by letter substitution.

7. The letter change is creating by applying the Fibonacci Sequence numbers above letter by letter.

8. The relevant number shows where you start for each letter to substitute. Thus the first letter is identified by rewriting the alphabet stating at the first letter in the alphabet ie for the first letter A = A. The second letter is also started at 1; the third at 3. When 21 is reached the code reverts back to 1 etc and repeats that until all the letters are substituted. A message ought then be revealed (there is a deliberate typo to create further confusion). The message reveals a significant but now overlooked event that occurred virtually 100 years to the day of the start of the trial.

9. The preparation of the Code took about 40 minutes and its insertion another 40 minutes or so.

10. I hate crosswords and do not do Su Doku as I do not have the patience.

Peter Smith

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• In Margot Fonteyn's footsteps
• Forget beautiful people, let's have wonky Brits
• Fundamentalist brew: faith and power