Joey Barton handed suspended sentence over offensive X posts

Former footballer Joey Barton has been handed a suspended sentence for social media posts about broadcaster Jeremy Vine and TV football pundits Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko.

Barton, 43, was found guilty by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court of sending grossly offensive electronic communications with intent to cause distress or anxiety.

The trial heard he had “crossed the line between free speech and a crime” with six posts on X including comparing Aluko and Ward to serial killers Fred and Rose West, and calling Vine a “bike nonce” between January and March 2024.

Barton, originally of Huyton, Merseyside, was given six months in custody, suspended for 18 months.

The ex-Manchester City and Newcastle player was also made by the Honorary Recorder of Liverpool, Judge Andrew Menary KC, to do 200 hours of unpaid work in the community and pay more than £20,000 in costs.

Following a televised FA Cup tie in January 2024 between Crystal Palace and Everton, Barton likened Ward and Aluko to the “Fred and Rose West of football commentary” and went on to superimpose their faces onto a photograph of the serial murderers.

Barton, who has 2.7m followers on X, repeatedly referred to Vine as “bike nonce” and said in one post: “If you see this fella by a primary school call 999,” and “Beware Man with Camera on his helmets cruising past primary schools. Call the Cops if spotted.”

He was found not guilty of six other allegations that he sent a grossly offensive electronic communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety between January and March 2024.

Jurors cleared Barton, now of Widnes, Cheshire, over the commentary analogy with the Wests but ruled the superimposed image was grossly offensive.

Giving evidence, Barton, who managed Fleetwood Town and Bristol Rovers, said he believed he was the victim of a “political prosecution” and denied his aim was “to get clicks and promote himself”.

On sentencing, Judge Menary KC told Barton: “Robust debate, satire, mockery and even crude language may fall within permissible free speech.

“But when posts deliberately target individuals with vilifying comparisons to serial killers or false insinuations of paedophilia, designed to humiliate and distress, they forfeit their protection.

“As the jury concluded, your offences exemplify behaviour that is beyond this limit – amounting to a sustained campaign of online abuse that was not mere commentary but targeted, extreme and deliberately harmful.”

Two-year restraining orders were issued against each of his victims which includes publishing any reference to them on any social media platform or broadcast medium.