Joey Barton has been given a 12-week suspended prison sentence by Westminster Magistrates’ Court after being found guilty of assaulting his wife.
Barton, 42, pushed his wife Georgia to the ground and kicked her in the head at their family home in south-west London in June 2021 while their children slept upstairs.
The 38-year-old woman was left with a lump the size of a golf ball on her head while the former Manchester City midfielder also threatened to fight her brother and father.
Barton denied having assaulted his wife but admitted having a “verbal altercation” with her during which things got “a bit more agitated”.
They had been drinking alcohol with two other couples before having a drunken row about a family matter, the court heard.
The former footballer then grabbed his wife and pushed her to the ground before kicking her in the head.
Police were called to an address in Kew after being called by Barton’s wife, who said she’d been hit by her husband and had a bloody nose.
Officers arrived at 11.14pm on 2 June 2021 and body-cam footage showed Mrs Barton telling them she had been “pushed down and kicked about and stuff”.
She repeated the account to another officer, but later wrote to the Crown Prosecution Service withdrawing her allegations.
However, the High Court deemed Barton should face trial despite his wife’s lack of support for the case.
Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring rejected Barton’s account of events as “vague” as he convicted him of a single charge of assault by beating after a two-day trial.
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 previously told the court he admitted getting into an argument with his wife, but denied that anything “physical” had happened.
He was arrested in his bedroom on the night of the incident, where he had been asleep and was still drunk, the trial was told.
Barton was taken to a local police station where he gave a no-comment interview.
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.”
The former footballer, of Widnes, Cheshire, was due to face trial at a magistrates’ court in 2022 but the case was adjourned after Mrs Barton sent a letter to prosecutors retracting her allegations.
In the letter, she said her injuries had been caused by accident when a friend moved in to separate the pair.
The couple are still married and living together. Barton, wearing a black jacket, jumper and trousers and glasses, did not speak from the dock but was asked to stand as the verdict was given.
Additional reporting by the Press Association
