Joey Barton convicted of assaulting his wife by kicking her in the head during drunken argument, avoids jail

The disgraced former footballer Joey Barton has been convicted of pushing his wife to the ground and allegedly kicking her in the head during an intoxicated argument. Despite the verdict, he has been spared a prison sentence.

According to the court proceedings, the 42-year-old ex-Manchester City midfielder, Joey Barton, caused physical harm to his wife, Georgia Barton, 36, resulting in a sizable lump on her head. The incident escalated after he made threats towards her brother and father.

A distressing emergency call made by Mrs. Barton following the altercation at their residence in west London in June 2021 was played in court. She tearfully reported that her husband had assaulted her during the episode.

She was filmed on police body-worn cameras telling officers she had been ‘pushed down and kicked about’ as her children slept upstairs. 

In February 2022 Mrs Barton wrote to the Crown Prosecution Service to say she no longer supported the case. The couple are still married. 

But last year the High Court decided her husband should still face trial.

Wife beater Barton has now been found guilty of assault following a two-day trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and was given a 12-week suspended prison sentence.

Convicting the ex-footballer, chief magistrate Paul Goldspring said he believed Barton and his wife had lied to the court about what happened that night.

‘I believe the veracity of the first account and it is supported by other evidence,’ he said. ‘The account on the telephone in the 999 call and to the attending officer is true.

‘I reject the account by Mrs Barton over eight months later and repeated in the witness box by her.’

The judge said a later explanation put forward by Mrs Barton, that she had sustained the injuries accidentally, was ‘unbelievable’.

He added the couple had contradicted themselves during their evidence in trial, because ‘they were not being truthful about what happened’.

Sentencing shamed footballer Barton, Mr Goldspring told him: ‘You’ve been found guilty of an offence of assaulting your wife.

‘The one place your wife is entitled to feel safe and protected is her home, and the one person she is entitled to feel safe and protected by is you, and that’s not what happened in this case.’

The court heard Mrs Barton had called police to say she had been assaulted by the former Bristol Rovers manager at their home in Kew, west London on June 2 2021.

The sickening attack reportedly happened after the pair had drunk ‘four or five bottles of wine’ – although Mr Goldspring does not believe Mrs Barton had anywhere near as much to drink as her abusive husband.  

Mrs Barton said the attack started ‘over like a disagreement over our families and stuff’ and said she had been ‘pushed down and kicked about and stuff.’

Barton then ‘grabbed [Georgia] and pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the head’, the court heard. 

During a tearful 999 call played to the court, Mrs Barton was heard telling police: ‘My husband’s just hit me in the house… He’s in the house, I’m outside.’

Afterwards an officer who arrived at the scene was heard telling a colleague Mrs Barton had a ‘good lump on the side of her head’.

A second piece of body-worn footage showed Mrs Barton confirm her account to a different police officer.

She told an officer that Barton ‘said he was gonna fight with my uncle and my dad’ before she was allegedly assaulted.

Prosecutor Helena Duong told the court Mrs Barton’s 999 call to police on the night of the incident was ‘compelling evidence’ of the assault, as she had described it in ‘clear terms’.

Mrs Barton was not as affected by alcohol as both she and Barton had suggested, the prosecutor said.

Ms Duong said Mrs Barton’s bloody nose was ‘an injury that really requires an explanation’, adding: ‘It was, plainly, something not caused by an accident.’

Barton arrived at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today, carrying a copy of Christopher Hitchens’s book Arguably.

The book contains 107 essays on a variety of political and cultural topics from the late British author. 

Giving evidence in January the former midfielder told the court he had been ‘out the house for about seven and half hours’ with his friends on the day in question.

He said two other sets of parents and their children were visiting his home for a ‘staycation’.

Barton said he got into a ‘verbal altercation’ with his wife which ended up with things ‘getting a bit more agitated and getting quite close to each other.’

‘I think I’d stupidly said something about her dad or her brothers or something like that’, Barton said.

He insisted at no time had he assaulted his wife.

Barton said he could tell his wife was drunk but said he had never seen her drink four bottles of wine on her own.

‘Girls – women – drink wine differently to how lads drink’, he told the court.

Asked about his wife’s demeanour in the body-worn footage, he said: ‘I did think she looked worse for wear.

‘She didn’t look like she does when she’s sober.’

Prosecutor Helen Duong told the ex-footballer: ‘I suggest that the truth of the matter is on June 2 2021 is that you got into a heated argument with your wife Ms Barton, and you grabbed her, pushed her to the ground and you kicked her in the head.

‘And you kicked her in the head hard enough to cause the injury that’s on her forehead.’

Barton replied: ‘If I kicked someone in the head it’ll do a lot more damage than what’s alleged in this case.’

He said it was ‘flip-flop weather’ at the time and he had left his shoes on the decking.

In her letter dated February 17 2022 Mrs Barton said she had ‘made a 999 call to report I had been assaulted by my husband Joseph Barton.’

She said she was ‘asked if I wished to make a formal complaint to which I declined – saying I did not wish for any complaint to be made.

‘Later that morning the police attended to my London address and asked me again to make a formal complaint. I again declined and did not wish to support the prosecution.

‘I told the officer I was drinking heavily.

‘From midday onwards I had consumed more than four bottles of wine.’

In her letter she claimed her account was ‘borne out of what my friends had been saying to me.’

She described a ‘long drinking session of which all adult presents were engaged in’ and wrote that ‘the blow to my head had to have been caused by one of my friends.’

‘The story fed to me by one of my friends was to deflect away from the fact that, while arguing with Joseph one of my friends must have accidentally caused him to elbow me whilst trying to take me away from Joseph and I shouting.

‘My clear recollection now is Joseph did not assault me, I was just very angry with him at the time.

‘I do not support this prosecution at all and have said from the outset that I do not.

‘My relationship with my husband is a very good one, it has always been a good one.

‘Please accept my word: I am not a victim, I have never been a victim of violence by Joseph.’

She added that the proceedings resulted from a ‘heavy drinking session’ and had been ‘blown out of all proportion.’

Simon Csoka, defending Barton, said it was not clear what the period of time was between Mrs Barton receiving the injury and making the 999 call.

Referring to the lump sustained on her head, he told the court: ‘There are a number of circumstances where the injury may have been sustained accidentally.’

Sentencing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, chief magistrate Paul Goldspring rejected Barton’s account of events given during evidence as untruthful and ‘vague’.

While he acknowledged Barton had ‘a record of violence’, the magistrate said: ‘I am satisfied that it is not necessary to impose an immediate custodial sentence.’

The court heard Barton had previously been convicted of affray and battery in May 2008 and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in the same year.

Passing judgement, Mr Goldspring said: ‘On the evening of the alleged assault Mrs Barton called 999 to report she had just been hit by her husband.

‘The defendant was arrested in his bedroom he was asleep at the time, he was interviewed by police the following day.

‘I believe the veracity of the first account and that it is supported by other evidence.

‘The account given on the 999 call and to officers at the scene is true.’

‘I do not accept that she drank four plus bottles of wine to herself – she was not so intoxicated.

‘I reject the evidence that she was so drunk that her account at the scene could not be relied upon.

‘I am satisfied the defendant now relies on fact he failed to mention at the time – it would have been reasonable to expect him to mention facts in the interview.

‘It is not credible that he could not at least give an outline of his case the following day.’

He said Barton’s claim his wife had a better memory years after the offence ‘defies both logic and common sense’ and was therefore unlikely to be the case.

Mr Goldspring added the couple remained in a ‘happy relationship’ with a young child, adding: ‘That is not something I want to interfere with.’

As well as being handed a 12-week sentence, suspended for two years, Barton was also ordered to pay £2,183 in victim surcharge and prosecution costs within seven days.

Barton, now of Widnes, was sacked as Bristol Rovers manager in 2023 following a poor run of results.

The 42-year-old also played for QPR and Burnley. He made one appearance for England in a friendly against Spain in 2017.

The former athlete retired from playing in 2018 and has also managed Fleetwood Town in League One.

Last year, broadcaster Jeremy Vine sued Barton for libel and harassment over 14 posts on X.

He had called Mr Vine a ‘big bike nonce’ and a ‘pedo defender’.