Joey Barton found guilty of sending “grossly offensive” media posts about Jeremy Vine

Joey Barton and Jeremy Vine social media portrait images

Former footballer guilty of six counts of sending “grossly offensive” social media posts aimed at Jeremy Vine, Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko

Former footballer Joey Barton has been found guilty of sending “grossly offensive” social media posts aimed at broadcaster Jeremy Vine and TV sports commentators Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko.

Barton referred to Jeremy Vine as a “bike nonce”, suggested he had visited “Epstein island”, and said: “If you see this fella by a primary school, call 999”.

Barton, who has 2.7 million followers on X, told Liverpool Crown Court his posts about the TV presenter, who lives in Chiswick, were just “crude banter” and that by using the term “bike nonce” he had not intended to imply he was a paedophile.

Jeremy Vine told the court previously he felt “very alarmed” that Mr Barton had chosen to use the word ‘nonce’.

“He is accusing me of being a paedophile,” he said. “These are disgusting actions. It’s a despicable thing to say.

“It gravely upset me, and I had a sleepless night that night.”

As Barton’s comments escalated, he also said he began to fear for his safety.

The question the jury at Liverpool Crown Court had to decide was whether Barton’s comments had crossed the line between free speech and a crime, and they decided it had.

Jeremy Vine had already taken civil proceedings against Barton, and won £75,000 in damages for defamation and harassment, along with his legal expenses.

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“A little bully” who “takes pleasure in posting slurs”

Barton compared Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko to serial killers Fred and Rosemary West, superimposing their faces onto a photograph of the killers.

He said Aluko was “only there to tick boxes, all off the back of the [Black Lives Matter] / George Floyd nonsense”.

He said he had been “trying to make a serious point in a provocative way”, claiming he was a victim of a “political prosecution” and that his comments were merely “dark and stupid humour”.

In his closing speech to the jury of seven men and five women, Prosecutor Peter Wright KC said the former Fleetwood and Bristol Rovers manager was not “the victim here”, describing him as “a little bully who takes pleasure sitting there with his phone in his hand and then posting these slurs”.

Comments crossed a line

The judge in the case, Judge Andrew Menary, directed the jury that to find Barton guilty of the charge of making “grossly offensive” comments required a high bar.

“The criminal law is not there to punish bad manners, sharp humour, or unpopular opinions”, he said.

“The law only intervenes when the content is of such an extreme, degrading or dehumanising character that society as a whole would say ‘that goes too far, that crosses the line of what we can tolerate’.”

Senior Crown Prosecutor Callum Bryce said the finding of the jury confirmed Barton’s conduct had “gone beyond any joke” and his messages were “grossly offensive with the purpose of causing anxiety and distress to his victims”.

As well as the six counts on which the jury found Barton guilty of making “grossly offensive” comments, they heard about six other remarks which they decided did not cross the line, and did not constitute malicious communication.