Inside the gruesome court case that exposed Joey Barton for the foul, violent and despicable individual he really is – including his shameless excuses for refusing to cooperate with assault trial

Joey Barton was adopting his intellectual persona in court on Tuesday afternoon. He walked in carrying a thick paperback of Christopher Hitchens essays on politics, literature and religion, entitled Arguably, and was charm personified when asked to step into the dock.

‘OK to leave my jacket and that here?’ he asked a court official. Within a few hours, he was rocking slightly in his seat as it became clear that he was about to be convicted of assaulting his wife, Georgina, by pulling her to the ground by her hair and kicking her, inflicting a ‘golf-ball-sized’ lump to her head which left her sobbing down her phone to emergency services.

Barton, convicted by Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring, who reminded him that ‘the one place your wife is entitled to feel protected is at home’, avoided jail. In part because his two previous criminal convictions – for affray and battery, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm – came 15 years ago.

But the pseudo-intellectual veneer of the portly 42-year-old wearing owlish spectacles, black roll-neck top and manicured goatee was stripped away.

If anyone was still under any illusions about Barton, this trial exposed him for the foul, violent and despicable individual he really is. He displayed no emotion when a 12-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, was imposed.

Barton knew precisely how to play things when police began investigating the lump and bloody nose sustained by his visibly distressed, yet entirely coherent wife late on a warm June evening which the couple had spent with friends in 2021. He was compliant with the police officers who found him in bed when arriving to interview him the morning after.

Barton’s pseudo-intellectual veneer – owlish spectacles, black roll-neck top and manicured goatee – was stripped away 

The former Man City player was found guilty of assaulting his wife, Georgina (pictured) 

But there was a ‘no comment’ to every question they put to him under caution at a police station. He refused to cooperate because he was a ‘high-profile figure’ and just ‘wanted to go home’, Barton’s barrister Simon Csoka KC told the judge yesterday.

Mr Csoka also brought Barton’s career as a former footballer into play. How could a mere lump on the head be consistent with Mrs Barton ‘being kicked in the head by a former professional footballer?’ he asked. ‘You would expect there to be lacerations.’

As in so many domestic abuse cases, Mrs Barton decided to withdraw her evidence. A trial date was approaching and she was pregnant with their child.

She wrote to prosecutors to say that she had been under the influence of drink and unable to remember events properly. But friends of hers on the scene that night saw Barton for what he was. Another woman who was there, named in court as Jan, declined to testify in a way which might support him. The judge saw that as significant.

Barton heard his version of events calmly taken apart by the judge in Court 1. His claim he had been in bed when Mrs Barton’s injury was sustained didn’t even tally with his wife’s story. 

The judge did not even bother dealing with the suggestion Mrs Barton’s use of the word ‘just’ – when saying her husband had ‘just hit me’ – was a Liverpudlian figure of speech, meaning that her call to police did not come immediately after the blow. ‘It is a Scouse expression. It can be said in almost every sentence by some Scousers,’ Mr Csoka said. He seemed to be clutching at straws.

By 4.30pm on Tuesday, Barton – who hasn’t worked in football since Bristol Rovers sacked him 18 months ago and will surely never do so again – was being asked if he had the money to pay the prosecution’s £2,055 costs and warned any further episodes would see him go to prison.

Some will view the decision not to jail him as astonishing, given the fact he has hit people with some consistency over the years and displayed no contrition after each assault. Barton punched Manchester City team-mate Ousmane Dabo at a training ground, claiming: ‘He wasn’t a natural fighter. I’m from the streets. There’s your difference.’

There was some surprise at Barton’s lack of jail time despite hitting people with some consistency over the years, showing very little contrition

While at Man City he punched team-mate Ousmane Dabo, claiming he ‘wasn’t a natural fighter’

In the past Barton had targeted former England star Eni Aluko on social media – actions which saw him charged with malicious communications

His vicious – and unprintable – tirade against Jeremy Vine saw the broadcaster successfully sue for slander

Despite a meticulously relayed argument from the judge Barton’s reaction on social media seemingly indicated the usual lack of contrition for his actions

He attacked a 15-year-old near a McDonald’s in Liverpool and was jailed for six months. ‘I went for the gobbiest kid, punched him once and dropped him,’ he later explained. He was accused of leaving Barnsley manager Daniel Stendel with a bloody face after a tunnel altercation while in charge of Fleetwood, though was cleared of assault occasioning ABH.

The six-month jail sentence in 2008, half of which he served, was part of a journey to self-improvement, he said – a chance to read books on Buddhist principles and the drug culture of the Tour de France. His working-class philosopher shtick then took hold. He was invited on to the BBC’s Question Time.

But the past few years have brought utterances so disgusting that some wonder about Barton’s mental health. An unprintable and vicious tirade against Jeremy Vine led the broadcaster to successfully sue him for slander. Social media posts about the former footballer Eni Aluko saw him charged with making malicious communications.

Most despicably of all, he dismissed the murder of Anthony Walker, the teenager killed by a blow to the head with a 2ft ice axe, inflicted on him by Barton’s racist brother and racist cousin, as the result of a ‘f****** scrap’.

Barton loitered outside the courtroom after his conviction, staring into his phone and punching out a message before walking away with his legal team and the Hitchens book, which he is a fifth of the way through, still under his arm.

Given his unemployability, it seems likely he will have plenty of reading time on his hands, though a tweet he put out last night suggested the usual lack of contrition, despite the meticulously argued verdict read out by the judge, who reminded him and the court Mrs Barton was the ‘victim in this case’.

‘Really disappointed in the magistrate’s decision,’ Barton tweeted. ‘I intend to appeal this decision to a higher court, the crown court and whilst this process is ongoing that’s all I will say on the matter.’