Joey Barton is SPARED jail after being found guilty of six charges over ‘offensive tweets’ aimed at Jeremy Vine and female football TV pundits Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward
Joey Barton has avoided jail, despite a judge finding that he had undertaken a ‘campaign’ of grossly offensive tweets, some racially motivated, which left Jeremy Vine and football broadcasters Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward in fear of being physical attacked by some of his millions of followers.
Sentencing him to six months’ jail, suspended for 18 months, Andrew Menary KC, Recorder of Liverpool, told Barton, 43, that his attack on Aluko, comparing her to serial killer Rose West, was both ‘racially aggravated’ and sexist. Repeated tweets claiming that Vine was a paedophile were ‘deliberately harmful,’ as was his attack on Ward, the judge said.
Barton, who was unanimously convicted last month on six counts of sending electronic communication which were grossly offensive with intent to cause distress or anxiety, stared ahead in the dock as the judge told him that had undertaken ‘a sustained campaign of online abuse that was targeted and extreme’.
Capitalising on the 2.8million X/Twitter followers he had when embarking on his campaign, he had ‘actively encouraged others to join in the abuse,’ the judge said.
Barton was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 18 months for the two racially aggravated accounts. He was sentenced to four months in prison, suspended for 18 months, for the other offences. The sentences run concurrently. He was also issued with restraining orders, forbidding him to contact Vine, Aluko or Ward for two years, ordered to pay £23,419 costs and undertake 200 hours of unpaid community service.
Barton arrived in court with a large luxury bag which suggested he was preparing to be sent to prison. But he joked with one of his legal team as he took his seat.
Joey Barton has avoided jail after being found guilty of six charges over ‘offensive tweets’
Last month he was found guilty of six counts of sending ‘grossly offensive’ posts on X, formerly Twitter
The ex-Newcastle United player announced shortly after his conviction that he was stepping away from Twitter and appears to have used this to help mitigate his sentence.
The court heard that he has also declared in interviews with experts preparing a sentencing report for this case that he has ‘long-standing difficulties with alcohol which has contributed to difficulties in the past.’ He also told them he has had ‘childhood trauma and depression’ which has contributed to ‘a tendency to deal with any challenge with aggression.’
The judge was told that Barton had six previous convictions, including affray and battery in 2008 and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in the same year, but did not view these convictions as relevant to sentencing in this case.
Judge Menary told him: ‘You (have said) that you have recently taken steps to moderate your online behaviour. Only time will tell whether this resolve endures, or whether your desire to preset yourself as some kind of social commentator – or perhaps more straightforwardly, your desire to drive engagement and subscriptions to your podcast, will lead you to repeat conduct of this kind.
‘In this digital age, social media platforms like X amplify voices exponentially, allowing pubic figures like you to reach vast audiences instantly. This power brings responsibility.’ Tweets with such levels of abuse as his had ‘forfeited’ any argument about freedom of speech, the judge said.
In a victim impact statement read out in court, Aluko described Barton’s comparison of her as ‘the most abhorrent, extreme and offensive criticism I’ve ever experienced’ – designed, as she saw it, to create an image of her as ‘undeserving unfavourable, disliked, discredited and hated in the eyes of football fans.’
She said: ‘I’ve been too scared to leave my home and have contact security services to add extra security to my home.
‘I fear those incited by him will find out where I live. He speaks of living nearby and that heightens my fear.
‘The fact my name can be Googled and attached to the West serial killers makes me sick to the core.’
Barton was found guilty of posting six ‘grossly offensive’ tweets about women football commentators Lucy Ward (right) and Eni Aluko and also broadcaster Jeremy Vine (left)
Aluko has since claimed her punditry work dried up as a consequence of the attacks by Barton
In her impact statement, Ward, 51, said: ‘I will never be able to adequately explain the fear, humiliation and pain I have felt. It has not only upended my professional reputation but my life as well.’
She pointed out that the post comparing her to Rose West had been viewed 3.5million times. ‘A tweet likening me to one of the worst serial killers this country has seen is an abomination.’
She added: ‘The knowledge that someone with such a background has weaponised his fanbase against me has filled me with a dread I just cannot escape.
‘I am afraid when in my house. I am afraid when I am in my community. I am afraid at the stadiums where I work. I feel exposed and vulnerable.
‘My family are afraid for my safety. This has left me questioning my own worth. I used to look forward to games.
‘The incessant bullying by the defendant has destroyed the job I love.’
