A jury of seven men and five women deliberated their verdict on Friday afternoon (November 7)
Ex-footballer and manager Joey Barton has been found guilty of posting “grossly offensive” messages to pundits Eni Aluko, Lucy Ward and TV presenter Jeremy Vine, on social media.
Barton, 43, was found guilty by a jury of six counts of sending a grossly offensive electronic communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety, following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court.
The ex-footballer, who has a following of 2.6 million on X, formerly Twitter, to which he described football pundits Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko as the “Fred and Rose West of football commentary,” before posting a superimposed image depicting the faces of the two women onto an image of the serial killers.
Charges against him also noted that he also implied TV presenter Jeremy Vine held a sexual interest in children, often calling him a “bike nonce” on social media, after the TV and radio presenter questioned whether Barton had a “brain injury”.
A jury of seven men and five women deliberated their verdict on Friday afternoon (November 7) before delivering the decision around 4:15pm.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that Barton, who played a single match for England against Spain in 2007, stated that Aluko belonged in the “Joseph Stalin/Pol Pot category” as she had “murdered hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of football fans’ ears”.
In another post, he wrote: “Only there to tick boxes. DEI is a load of sh*t. Affirmative action. All off the back of the BLM/George Floyd nonsense”.
Barton, from Widnes, Cheshire, denied the 12 charges of sending a grossly offensive electronic communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety between January and March of the previous year.
In his defence, the former Fleetwood Town and Bristol Rovers manager stated he believed himself to be the subject of a “political prosecution”, rejecting claims his intention was “to get clicks and promote himself,” adding that his posts about Aluko and Ward were “dark and stupid humour” and that he was “trying to make a serious point in a provocative way”.
Other tweets directed at Jeremy Vine read: “Have you been on Epstein Island? Are you going to be on these flight logs? Might as well own up now because I’d phone the police if I saw you near a primary school on ya bike.”
Prosecutor Peter Wright KC told the court in his closing remarks that Barton had crossed the line “by some considerable margin” beyond what society finds acceptable.
“Mr Barton is not the victim here. He is not the free speech crusader that he would like to paint himself to be,” Mr Wright contended.
“He is not some martyr to be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.
“He is just simply an undiluted, unapologetic bully. A little bully who takes pleasure sitting there with his phone in his hand and then posting these slurs.”
Mr Wright described Ward, Aluko and Vine as the “collateral damage of his self-promotion”.
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