Joey Barton during an appearance on ‘Piers Morgan Uncensored.’
Former British soccer star Joey Barton has been given a six-month suspended sentence for making “grossly offensive” posts on the X platform.
In the latest escalation in the British state’s war on freedom of expression, 43-year-old Barton was found guilty last month at Liverpool Crown Court of six counts of sending a grossly offensive electronic communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety.
The conviction related to posts he made targeting the football pundits Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko, as well as the BBC broadcaster Jeremy Vine.
BREAKING: UK judge sentences Joey Barton to six months in prison over offensive posts on X pic.twitter.com/hKRWi8Y5tz
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 8, 2025
Sentencing Barton on Monday, Judge Andrew Menary KC said that “robust debate, satire, mockery and even crude language may fall within permissible free speech.”
”But when posts deliberately target individuals with vilifying comparisons to serial killers or false insinuations of paedophilia, designed to humiliate and distress, they forfeit their protection.”
Menary went on to describe Barton as “not a man of previous good character” and said he had carried out “a sustained campaign of online abuse that was not mere commentary but targeted, extreme and deliberately harmful.”
While Barton’s comments could definitely be condemned as extremely unkind, most were intended as jokes or crass humor.
During an FA Cup tie in which Ward and Aluko were commentating, Barton described them as the “Fred and Rose West of football commentary,” a reference to the notorious British serial killers.
In another post, he mocked Jeremy Vine as a “bike nonce” and asked if he had visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.
Joey Barton has been given six-months in custody, suspended for 18 months, for sending six “grossly offensive” social media posts.
Huw Edwards was given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years for indecent images of children.
The UK “justice” system for you. pic.twitter.com/NbH3xCJUFD
— Chris Rose (@ArchRose90) December 8, 2025
In her impact statement, Ward said she was “deeply upset with the malicious comparison to serial killers and feels humiliated given that millions of people will have seen this comparison.”
Vine, meanwhile, said the experience was “profoundly traumatising.”
“I took some advice about my security, I varied my movements. I do believe these messages put me in danger, in physical danger.”
As part of his suspended sentence, Barton must complete 200 hours of unpaid community work and pay prosecution costs of £23,419, which he has 28 days to pay.
There will also be two-year restraining orders relating to each of his victims that prohibit publishing any reference to them on any social media platform or broadcast medium.
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