Former Rangers star Joey Barton ‘crossed line’ with ‘bike nonce’ social media posts, trial hears

Barton is on trial over social media posts referencing a trio of TV personalities

Barton posted an image of TV host Jeremy Vine on social media, calling him ‘bike nonce’(Image: Daily Record)

Former Rangers star Joey Barton “crossed the line between free speech and a crime” in relation to social media posts about broadcaster Jeremy Vine and female football pundits Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward, a jury has heard on Monday (November 3).

Barton, 43, is on trial at Liverpool Crown Court, accused of 12 counts of sending a grossly offensive electronic communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety. The former Gers midfielder was charged in relation to a series of posts made in January and March last year on the social media site X, formerly Twitter.

Opening the prosecution case on Monday, Peter Wright KC told jurors that Barton had a “sizeable following on X in excess of two million” and his comments on the social media platform “may well be characterised as cutting, caustic, controversial and forthright”.

Barton (right, in blue) made eight appearances during a short stay at Ibrox in 2016(Image: SNS Group)

“Some may even consider some of them humorous,” he added, “Everyone is entitled to express views that are all of those things,” Mr Wright said.

“They are even entitled in a democratic, free society to express views that are offensive, shocking or personally rude when considered against and applying the contemporary standards of an open, just, multi-racial; equal and diverse society.

“What someone is not entitled to do is to post communications electronically that are – applying those standards – beyond the pale of what is tolerable in society.

“We say that the defendant, Mr Barton, crossed the line between free speech and a crime on 12 occasions.

Barton made his name at Manchester City and won a solitary England cap during a career spanning 15 years(Image: PA)

“On 12 occasions between early January and mid-March last year, he engaged in a quite deliberate course of conduct in which he targeted three people, who are in different ways in the public eye, and he subjected them through his posts to a slew of grossly offensive electronic communications with intent to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he intended its contents or nature to be communicated.”

Following a televised FA Cup tie between Crystal Palace and Everton he likened Ms Aluko and Ms Ward on an X post to the “Fred and Rose West of commentary” and added the former was “only there to tick boxes”.

Barton later posted an image of the notorious serial killers Fred and Rose West, the court heard, with the faces of the two pundits superimposed onto them and said: “We’ve established they cannot take a joke and understand metaphors. So, I’ll leave you with this..”

In a separate post the ex-Manchester City and Newcastle United midfielder wrote of Ms Aluko: “She’s clearly in the Joseph Stalin/Pol Pot category…She’s murdered hundreds of thousands if not millions of football ears in the last few years.”

Mr Wright said TV and radio presenter Mr Vine responded to Barton’s Fred and Rose West comparisons by posting on X: “What’s going on with @Joey7Barton ? I just glanced at the Rose West thing … genuinely, is it possible we are dealing with a brain injury here?

“A brain injury can cause changes to a person’s character, eg disinhibition, anti-social behaviour. I sincerely hope he is okay.”

The prosecutor continued: “The defendant did not read these interventions as an expression of concern for his wellbeing, but rather as an insult. He sent a post to Jeremy Vine’s X account in which he referred to him as ‘you big bike nonce’.”

Mr Wright told jurors: “We say this defamatory, frankly puerile and infantile behaviour by a grown man in respect of these people was, and is, beyond the pale of what is tolerable in society and therefore characterised as criminal.”

Barton, from Widnes, Cheshire, denies the allegations.