Former footballer Joey Barton has avoided jail time for posting grossly offensive messages on social media about broadcaster Jeremy Vine and football analysts Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko.
A jury at Liverpool Crown Court determined last month that Barton, 43, “crossed the line between free speech and criminal conduct” with his six posts on X (formerly Twitter).
After a televised FA Cup match in January 2024 between Crystal Palace and Everton, he compared Ward and Aluko to the “Fred and Rose West of football commentary” and even altered a photograph, superimposing their faces onto that of the notorious serial killers.
Barton was acquitted of six additional charges related to sending offensive electronic communications with the intent to cause distress or anxiety from January to March 2024.
While the jurors cleared Barton of the comparison with the Wests, they deemed the altered image to be grossly offensive.
During his testimony, Barton, who has managed Fleetwood Town and Bristol Rovers, claimed he was a target of a “political prosecution” and insisted that he had no intention of seeking publicity or self-promotion.
On Monday, Judge Andrew Menary KC handed Barton a sentence of six months in custody, suspended for 18 months.
In his remarks, Judge Menary KC stated: “While robust debate, satire, mockery, and even crude language can fall under permissible free speech, when individual posts explicitly target people with degrading comparisons to serial killers or false insinuations of paedophilia, created to humiliate and distress, those messages lose their protected status.”
He continued, “As the jury found, your actions represent behavior that exceeds acceptable limits, constituting a prolonged campaign of online abuse that was not simply commentary but was targeted, extreme, and intentionally harmful.”
In addition to the suspended sentence, Barton must complete 200 hours of community service and pay prosecution costs amounting to £23,419.
A two-year restraining order has been placed against each of his victims, prohibiting him from making any reference to them on social media or other broadcast platforms.