Ex-footballer Barton gets suspended sentence for abusive online comments

File photo: Former Premier League footballer Joey Barton

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Former Premier League footballer Joey Barton was spared jail on Monday after being given a suspended sentence for grossly offensive social media posts concerning British broadcaster Jeremy Vine and television pundits Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko.

Last month a jury found Barton had “crossed the line between free speech and a crime” with six posts on X — formerly Twitter.

At Liverpool Crown Court on Monday, Judge Andrew Menary sentenced Barton to six months in custody, suspended for 18 months.

Following a televised FA Cup tie in January 2024 between Crystal Palace and Everton, he likened the female duo of Ward and Aluko to the “Fred and Rose West of football commentary” and went on to superimpose their faces on to a photograph of two of Britain’s most notorious serial murderers.

He also tweeted that Aluko, a former England women’s international, was in the “Joseph Stalin/Pol Pot category” as she had “murdered hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of football fans’ ears”.

Jurors found him not guilty on the comparison with dictators Stalin and Pol Pot, as well as the commentary analogy with the Wests, but decided the superimposed image was grossly offensive.

Barton was also convicted over a post in relation to Aluko, who is black, in which he suggested she was merely a diversity hire.

The 43-year-old, who has 2.6 million followers on X, used an offensive term indicating that Vine had a sexual interest in children after the TV and radio current affairs presenter sent a message querying whether Barton had a “brain injury”.

Barton was convicted over a post suggesting Vine had known Jeffrey Epstein in a reference to the deceased US sex offender.

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

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

AFP

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