6th November 2025
November 6 – Former footballer Joey Barton has appeared before Liverpool Crown Court facing 12 charges of sending grossly offensive communications.
Prosecutors suggest that the 43-year-old “crossed the line between free speech and a crime” through a series of posts on X, aimed at broadcaster Jeremy Vine and former players turned pundits Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward.
With over two million followers, Barton’s comments, prosecutors argued, weren’t just opinion; they were attacks designed to cause the recipients distress.
Barton called Ward and Eluko “the Fred and Rose West of football commentary”, in reference to the notorious British serial killers, on his X account, and in another post, superimposed their faces onto a photograph of the mass murderers.
Peter Wright KC told the court that Barton’s posts “may well be characterised as cutting, caustic, controversial and forthright,” adding that everyone in a democracy is entitled to be “offensive, shocking, or personally rude.” But, he said, “what someone is not entitled to do is to post communications that are beyond the pale of what is tolerable in society.”
Barton denies all allegations insisting that he did not mean to cause the trio of targets ‘any anxiety or distress’. The 43-year-old said he was attempting to be “provocative” and start a serious national debate about women broadcasting on the men’s game in relation to the posts aimed at Aluko and Ward.
Contact the writer of this story, Nick Webster, at [moc.l1762422305labto1762422305ofdlr1762422305owedi1762422305sni@r1762422305etsbe1762422305w.kci1762422305n1762422305](javascript:;)